2003 Vaporware Awards

7x7 writes "Wired News has the 2003 Vaporware Awards available for your perusal. Winning the Lifetime Achievement Award, if you hadn't guessed already: Duke Nukem Forever!"

Comments

HL2 should not have been #1...

[fireduck]

I think Team Fortress 2/Half-Life Fortress should take that spot, if one really feels the need to slam Valve. Fortress was preselling at the time of HL's release. It then disappeared, sorta re-appeared as the free TF mod, and was re-confirmed with the announcement and subsequent E3 showing of TF2. Then it re-disappeared again, and apparently is gone, now that HL2 is soon to be up to bat?

HL2 had the source code stolen thing, and that's an understandable delay in shipping. TF2 just makes no sense... (particularly given how impressive the technology demonstrations were at E3 however many years ago that was, 4?)

Re:HL2 should not have been #1...

[sTalking_Goat]

How does the stealing of source code delay shipping?

Was there just the one copy?

Knuth V4

[jefu]

About six years ago I got a response card thingy from one of the publishing companies. They were telling me that I could sign up then to buy Vol. 4 of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming. So I guess that can't count as last years vaporware. Their optimism should have counted for something though.

Re:Just A Reminder Everyone

[Hungus]

if you paid them anything other than cash and it doesn't ship out in 90 days you have grounds for a small claims court judgement. With cash I think it is 120 days. Needless to say go to small claims court and file a suit against them for the amount of the prepay + whatever it costs you to file ( usually about 10 dollars) and unspecified legal costs. I can virtually garantee you that you will have a check from them before the court date. The reason? even if they feel they are entirely correct in not refunding you it will cost them more to send someone over to sit in the courtroom than what they owe you.
Note I am not a lawyer but I often work with them. The specifics may be different from municipality to municipality but the court can advise you on the specifics. Thats why we vote for all those JPs and such.

Re:E3 Needs to Change

[Mike Hawk]

E3 is not for consumers. If you don't want to hear the buzz, don't listen. E3 is for publishers and other vendors to present their products to retailers. E3 is an industry trade show that is not open to the public. If you are disappointed by something that occurs based on E3, you have noone to blame but yourself.

Now, something announced in a press release is another matter entirely.

List is dominated by games

[The I Shing]

I'd like to see the Vaporware Awards split up into some major categories like "Games," "Software," and "Hardware," or something like that.

I don't eagerly await shipment of new games, being an old fuddyduddy with not a lot of free time, and I'd like to see some actual productivity and imaging products get on that list, in addition to all the games and wrist gadgets.

What about that digital film that was supposed to come along? Whatever happened to that? I've got an old, sturdy 1970s Canon AE-1 Program that's just dying to come out of semi-retirement and use those extra-sharp FD lenses to make digital photos.