Duke Nukem Forever Tops Vaporware List

Wired has an annual list of high-profile vaporware projects and the number of games on there is just depressing. Numbers 7, 6, 5, 2, and 1 are all videogame projects. When the Phantom is only #2, you know what has to be number 1. From the article: "Announced in 1997 and promised every year since, this game takes vaporware to new heights. Think about it, in just 13 months this game will have been in one form of development or another for a decade. This project started with a game based on the Quake 2 engine, then in 1999 it moved to the Unreal engine and has been stalled ever since."

Comments

google

[szembek]

I disagree with the author having the Google beta products in the list. Simply because a product doesn't change from beta to actual release for a while doesn't necessarily make it vaporware. Gmail has been implementing new features and improving ever since it was initially released as a 'beta'. I think I would file it under vaporware, if we kept reading slashdot posts about an upcoming mail service by Google only to never see anything. Also Google tends to use the term 'beta' quite loosely.

Re:google

[drinkypoo]

According to Wired's definition, it's vaporware.

The only thing wired's an authoritative source on is how to make a magazine so ugly, gaudy, and unreadable that you lose half your subscribers. The only people who hung onto wired for that long were the ones who wanted to look like a nerd by having it on their coffee table.

Wired articles tend to be punched up so much in order to be sensational that they lose any validity. They're not about the news, they're about giving them excuses to put pretty pictures and funky type in their magazine.

No one who is anyone important takes Wired seriously.

DNF

[singularity]

I just noticed this on the DNF FAQ:

1.8 - Will DNF be available on DVD?
This still has not been decided yet, however the chances of this happenning are slim. It is important to note that DVD's are not mainstream yet, at least not in the software industry.

Now, I almost never do any gaming on my computer, but I definitely think that any machine that is going to run DNF is going to have a DVD drive.

Amazing that this product has been in development so long that means of distribution have even changed.

Re:DNF

[drinkypoo]

Now, I almost never do any gaming on my computer, but I definitely think that any machine that is going to run DNF is going to have a DVD drive.

Are you kidding? At this rate, any computer that is going to run DNF is going to have a direct neural interface and a quantum holography storage device.

WINE

[Pantero Blanco]

If products that have been in Beta for forever are classified as vaporware, WINE deserves at least an honorable mention. How long has it been in Alpha now? ;)

(yes, I know it's often useful nonethess, but...)

The real vaporware

[dcapel]

is Desktop Linux. Sheesh, it is not the year of the Desktop Linux. It never will be. It will slowly grow, but just 'be' there. Yes, Martin Fink, I'm talking to you.

Re:The real vaporware

[generic-man]

My killer app for Windows is Quicken. I've been using it since version 1, back before Linux's kernel hit 1.0 and before GNUcash development was started. My file is something like 12 MB in size. Whenever the topic of "how do I migrate from Quicken for Windows to GNUcash?" comes up, the solution involves a very tedious and lossy export/import of QIF files, usually with some childish jabs as to why I would ever use such a closed platform.

I bought a Windows PC specifically to run Quicken after seeing how unbelievably awful Quicken for Mac is: the migration process from Quicken/Windows to Quicken/Mac is nearly as bad as the one from Quicken/Windows to GNUcash.

Show me a program that can import my whole Quicken for Windows file into a Free Libre Software program format, and I'll go down on you.

Re:The real vaporware

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

You don't get it, do you? People don't want a choice of window managers, they want something that works. They don't want OpenOffice, which, while an excellent product, is bloated and not fully compatible with Office.

What happens when I buy a multi-function printer? Will I be able to scan photos using it? Will my webcam work?

If I decide to get into photo editing, will I be able to run Photoshop? When I do my taxes, will TurboTax run? Will I be able to play games?

Will I be able to buy (mainstream) music and put it on my iPod? Will Mathematica run? What about Maple?

All of the things above are trivial on two operating systems: Windows and Mac OS X. Currently, Mac OS has less than 5% of the desktop market, and it is far more 'ready' for the desktop than Linux.

You can meet 80% of the needs of 80% of the people 80% of the time. But in a world where Windows just ins't that expensive, that's just not good enough.

What about Too Human? Or Mario 128?

[mouse_clicker]

Don't get me wrong, I love all of Silicon Knights' games, but Too Human has been in development since before The Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen (meaning over 10 years, probably more) and has switched consoles twice. Now, I have no doubt it'll eventually come out and most likely be excellent, but why is Twilight Princess or even DNF on the list and not Too Human?

For that matter, why is Zelda on the list but not Mario 128? Mario 128 has been promised to us since, what was it, Spaceworld 2000? I could be mistaken, but regardless, it's been a while and we have seen no demoes, videos, or even screenshots, and it's switched development from the Gamecube to the Revolution. How is Twilight Princess being delayed 4 or 5 months but still having videos, screens, and demoes galore count as vaporware, but Mario 128 not? Odd...

-Moses

Yes, thank you. -- team fortress 2

[Tibor the Hun]

The original team fortress (not the original, original quake one, but halflife one) was my first serious team based game and i have many great memories playing it.
but this whole hl2, but no tf2 experience has left me pretty raw towards valve. heck I was even willing to go along with their steam delivery, hoping that they'd deliver tf2 one of these days, but they've been dragging their feet too long..
in the mean time we've had the wonderful and free Wolfenstein: ET released, and the upcoming quake wars: ET, which should be the best game ever made...

i'm glad someone has the courage to tell valve that they've dropped the ball on this one.

Re:Weak, as usual

[jonadab]

> Vista, well, it's been delayed a couple of years so I guess it qualifies, even if it's
> one of those things that's guranteed to come out, in a way like nothing else on that
> list, even if does take another three years.

I'd count Longhorn/Vista as vaporware. It was going to come out in 2003 (or was it 2002?). The original projected release date for *Blackcomb* (the release that was going to be after Longhorn) passed in late 2004. It's now early 2006. However, it's not the total quantity of delay time that really makes Longhorn vapor; it's the continual repeated pushing-back in small increments: Every spring, it's coming out later this year. Every summer, it's coming out in time for Christmas. Every Christmas, it's coming out next year. Mmm Hmm. Sure it is. Now they're saying 2006 Q3. Since they've now shown an actual factual beta to a significant number of people outside the company, I project it will now only get pushed back 1-2 more times, and release in 2007.

> even if it's one of those things that's guranteed to come out, in a way like nothing
> else on that list even if does take another three years.

That's another vapor-ish thing about Longhorn/Vista: the ever-changing feature list. *Something* is guaranteed to eventually come out, and Microsoft will *call* it Vista, but if you look at what Longhorn was going to be, in terms of promised features... well, that's another thing. Some of that stuff may *never* come out.

For instance, they've changed the whole *concept* of WinFS, at least twice. Originally it was going to be a filesystem built on top of a database (kinda like BeFS, only on steroids), that would eliminate the whole concept of hierarchical file storage in favor of a database/metadata paradigm for organizing data. Fortunately, they thought better of that, so then they said well, it's going to be an extra symantic _layer_, on top of a more traditional filesystem, so that while the traditional hierarchical storage will be there under the hood, the user won't ever see that, and you'll have the database and the metadata paradigm on the surface instead. That too has now not been heard in the last year or so. At this point I think what's left of WinFS is little more than a specialized indexer.