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Wired's 2007 Vaporware Awards

Posted by kdawson on from the you-say-vapor-i-say-hot-air dept.

Braedley sends word that Wired's annual vaporware list is up, and a number of products this community has discussed made the cut. The top spot, the position of most dishonor, was almost a foregone conclusion. "Another December, another list, another crowning achievement by the Emperor of the Ethereal, the Head Honcho of Hype, Duke Nukem Forever. We were going to disqualify him out of pity, but Sir Duke is back for 2007 thanks to a few leaked screenshots and an overwhelming number of votes. DNF creators 3D Realms even chose this week to debut a well-publicized video trailer for Duke's long-awaited return. Alas, a trailer is not a game, so — long live the king!"

6 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong direction... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, 2007 saw a bunch of high-profile projects climb from "vaporware" to "disappointment": Vista was released widely, OLPC produced a couple of semi-solid deals out of their usual fog of hype, even that Chandler email/PIM thingy managed some sort of alpha release.

    1. Re:Wrong direction... by GungaDan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Don't leave out Barcelona and Phenom! They deserve a dishonorable mention here. Or maybe their own award. We could call it a "Hector."

      --
      Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
    2. Re:Wrong direction... by MBCook · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It also saw Team Fortress 2 released. A game that has been in development much longer than Daikatana was, has seen complete rewrites, and would be the vaporware joke everyone knew about if it wasn't for DNF.

      Not only did the game come out, it's fantastic. It keeps the great feel, has beautiful graphics that are nicely stylized, and works very well. It could use more maps (they're working on it), and the classes do feel very different as part of the balancing, but it's a great game overall.

      Every once in a while, a game rises from the miasma of vaporware and is good. That has now happened once this century, which means that DNF is dead.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  2. DNF of course by justkarl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why don't they just give the Duke the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award so we can carry on with our lives...

  3. Horrible Article by Cornflake917 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I didn't know vaporware meant "software/hardware that has a delayed release date" or "software that will probably be made but hasn't been announced yet." I don't understand how you can mention Diablo III in a vaporware list and not mention Starcraft: Ghost.

    The article was also way off on how the Spore multiplayer will supposedly work. You're not going to be able to directly compete with other people's races. The computer-controlled races will be based off a global database of races that other players upload their race information to. This is barely more "multiplayer" then a global high score list.

    --
    Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
  4. Re:I didn't see Vista onthe list by Machtyn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm surprised WinFS wasn't listed. But then again, why beat up on MS more (oh, yeah, because it's fun!).
    Windows Future Storage... it's stored in the future, so you'll have it when you need it...?