I knew we had something similar already, and it actually came up in Recent Changes this morning. The original description was so inadequately vague it could have basically been Schedule Slip.
Topic on Talk:Release Date Change
For how I see it, Release Date Change is actually the missed supertrope of Schedule Slip. Schedule Slip is related to how in serial works or stuff released in installments, after an initially regular release schedule the promised new updates begin to lag and be postponed. Works subjected to Release Date Change are not necesarily serial in nature, and more often than not it is its premiere/initial release date the one that is changed for reasons.
Okay, works for me. We should add that distinction right to the new trope's description.
On that note, examples should probably go into a smidge more detail about what caused the delay wherever possible.
And now that I'm reading the examples in Schedule Slip, I think that some of them should be moved to this trope, as they were only included there because it was the closest trope existent to the concept of "release date changed a lot".
Agree. What do you say, LT?
I'd say copy them over for now, but leave them in Schedule Slip until the trope is launched.
Makes sense to me.
Come to think of it, some of the categories on Schedule Slip might also be appropriate for this trope, which still needs categories.
...The more I read this page and think about it, the more I find myself saying "so what?" Release dates change so often that I'm thinking this ventures into People Sit on Chairs territory.
I propose that in the page only list very notorious cases (read long/many consecutive delays, surprising push backs and early releases, and real life events that cause massive release date changes on multitude of media) along with fictional ones (if found), and that individual cases of release dates that have less of a year between the original announced one and the actual release one must be put on the trivia page of the work in question.
Hate to say it, but that just feels like Development Hell with extra steps.