I’m not sure you can really consider a game delayed that never had a specific release date to begin with, but Eric Brown, who is CEO for EA hinted during an investment call that there is a possibility that the game could be held over until 2012 if conditions warranted. EA has always been concerned that releasing the game before it’s properly ready will have a negative impact for the players and thus doom the game before it even starts. Even when they do finally start sending copies, they plan to limit the number of players at first.
But Bioware has also put their two cents in, saying that there was never a promise at all of a date, and that their target of Holiday 2011 was always just a best case scenario, not an official announcement. It is their hope to still make that date and they are certainly working toward that goal, but it’s not a guarantee because of the many things that have to be checked by players and developers alike. That is the reason for the long beta test.
Because the last thing they want with Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is a massive and expensive endeavor with a rabid fanbase already on board, is to not have a smooth launch which has happened before to the detriment of the companies that have endured it. EA has a lot riding on this and so they are very willing to extend the time it takes to make sure it runs right at the start rather than suffer the embarrassment if it doesn’t.
After all, there is a lot that can go wrong with this sort of game, especially as the servers climb to capacity. There are hundreds of thousands of bugs that could still need to be stomped out, things that the programmers never would have considered that people would do. How well the beta phase goes will determine how much there still is to repair and whether that repair will take too long for the hoped for release date. But given the complexity, it’s easy to see why they may be very shy on committing. As long as they don’t keep delaying indefinitely, revisiting the opening every three months or so as a tease.
But who knows. Only time will tell whether they are comfortable enough to go ahead for Christmas, but if not, then I’m sure that base will wait just a bit longer to get their Star Wars fill…
