Fable II Cancel's Xmas!

[Aggort]

It seems the anticipated DLC for Fable has been delayed!

HINT: Click the smilie!

[Norse]

Too bad. I really want some more Fable 2 action.

[LongStepMantis]

They need to put in a DLC Grinch to get the message across.

[Purple Santa]

That sucks. I was ready to d/l for ADDGirl for a xmas present...

[menage]

Damn shame, but hey, maybe it will be less buggy in the end.

[Aggort]

I was really bummed out by it for the simple fact that this was going to have me playing Co-Op with a friend who just got the game as an early Xmas gift

[KingGorilla]

Peter to Live team:
I have a Christmas present for the users.

Live Team: Christmas is on a Thursday, a week later another holiday. We have had enough Holiday Technology nightmares. Make it a Valentine Peter, for us.

You don't release updates during Holidays, that cannot end well.

[JayVe]

This is a shame. I don't honestly mind waiting a bit more, but I told the Mrs. about it. Now I have to go break the news to her.

Make no promises, break no hearts. Don't announce the download release date until you are SURE you can make it.

[Variable Gear]

Originally Posted by JayVe

Make no promises, break no hearts. Don't announce the download release date until you are SURE you can make it.

In my opinion, the same axiom should hold true for game release dates as well.

Unfortunately, most of the time, it doesn't.

[JayVe]

Originally Posted by Variable Gear

In my opinion, the same axiom should hold true for game release dates as well.

Unfortunately, most of the time, it doesn't.

EXACTLY! How many times have we gone through the same song and dance routine?

Me to developers: I love your product and I am very much interested in giving you my money.

Developers: Excelsior! In 3 months, we will gladly make an exchange with you. We will trade you one of our delightful games, and you can give us monetary compensation in return.

Me: Delightful. I will mark this day on my calendar.

***months pass***

Me: Hello? I am ready and have been patiently waiting to GIVE YOU MY MONEY! Where are you?!

Developers: Oh, sorry about that. We aren't quite done yet.

Wash - Rinse - Repeat

Life is very focused around expectations. And dealing with customers is an art of managing those customer's expectations. If developers that are working for me make a habit of delivering things late, they are fired. They set deadlines for when things get done, and managers need REALISTIC estimates, NOT OPTIMISTIC estimates. If you are gonna have something to me on Friday, get it to me on Friday. Make a habit out of missing your own deadlines, and bye-bye.

Here's a light article on Managing Expecations, and an excerpt.

...how you perceive your performance may differ from how your customers perceive it. In fact, discrepancies between your perceptions and theirs would not be at all unusual; I routinely encounter such discrepancies when I interview a company's service staff as well as its customers. So, even if you're working yourself to the proverbial bone, if customers view you as unresponsive, then you are unresponsive — in their eyes.

The reverse is also true: If you really are unresponsive, but customers perceive that you deliver superior service, then you do (in their eyes), and you gain little by trying to convince them otherwise. I'm not advocating bumbleheaded service, of course, but merely emphasizing that customer satisfaction is driven by their perceptions, not yours. Their perceptions are their reality, and any overlap between their view of the world and your own may be simply one of those delightful coincidences.

Sony's HOME is a great example of this. When first unveiled, it met with great fanfare and expectation. After numerous delays so the development staff could get it working, people are much less tolerant of the problems the system has... after all, didn't you ALREADY push things back for more than a year?

Had Sony delivered it when they said (I believe it was Fall 07 for open Beta), people would have been more tolerant of the system. On the other hand, prior to the announcement of Home, customers had NO expectations of it. Sony could have kept Home under wraps and unveiled a more complete, functional version and it would have been a surprise, thereby EXCEEDING their expectations.

Edit: Ugh, sorry for the wall of text. But managing expectations is so key to success in just about every industry, it completely baffles me how big companies can't understand such core principles.

Peter at Lionhead has been burned on this so many times himself. He has a lot of great ideas that he needs to keep INSIDE Lionhead, and not let his unformed ideas color his customer's expectations, else we end up with another Fable I disaster.

[Sazime]

I only care if the DLC brings back my dead dog so I can finish the Anthropologist quests.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by KingGorilla

Peter to Live team:
I have a Christmas present for the users.

Live Team: Christmas is on a Thursday, a week later another holiday. We have had enough Holiday Technology nightmares. Make it a Valentine Peter, for us.

You don't release updates during Holidays, that cannot end well.

How odd. See, the picture I had in my head was more like:

Peter: I'd like to have this DLC released before Christmas.

XBLA Exec: Are you crazy?! Don't you know how the certification process works? Wee need several months of pointless dickery, meaningless nitpicking, and general bureaucratic nonsense before we can even consider actually releasing something.

Peter: I guess next time I should just make the main character Master Chief entirely instead of that "special edition armor" silliness.

[Variable Gear]

I'm with you, J. The XBL cert. team always ruins everyone's fun.