Vaporware: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Then Indonesia claimed that they

 

Computer or video game software or hardware with revolutionary or next-generation capabilities that is continuously hyped to the public, but doesn't seem to be coming any closer to store shelves. Note that long development cycles do not, by themselves, qualify a product as Vaporware; the game must be repeatedly postponed and put off, all the while being promoted as "Coming soon!"

Compare [[Development Hell]], [[Stillborn Serial]]. Contrast [[Dead Fic]] and [[Orphaned Series]], which actually manage to release more than a teaser (thanks to serialization) before eventually being abandoned incomplete. See also [[Saved From Development Hell]] for a few who managed to get completed.

 

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The all-time king of vaporware in gaming is certainly ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'', which [http://duke.a-13.net/ languished in development from 1997 to 2009] before [http://www.warpzoned.com/?p=1286 finally being released in May... er...] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VFFR-5a-Ko June 2011]. The game's status is so legendary that most people are now more familiar with it than [[Duke Nukem|the original series]] of three popular and well-reviewed [[Action Hero]] parodies.

* The entirety of the ''Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII'' franchise appears to be suffering this at large:

** ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' was revealed for the first time at E3 2006, via a CG trailer. It had already been in development for at least a year at that point, and later interviews revealed that the game had been in development even ''longer'' (the battle system had existed on a [[PlayStation 2]] as a prototype). Every subsequent year they released a slightly modified version of the same trailer with a few new scenes mixed in, any new information being slowly drip-fed. It wasn't until 2009 that Square Enix showed some actual gameplay footage and revealed significant plot details, the game finally seeing retail later that year.

** Finally, the portable title, ''Final Fantasy Agito XIII''; again, it was announced alongside the other two games as a mobile phone game, but little was said or shown of it (save for some concept art and a logo). This persisted until an announcement at a Square Enix expo in late 2008, where it was said the mobile phone version had been cancelled in favour of a PSP version. After a name change, the game was finally released in late 2011.

*** Square Enix has stated that the PSP version was in the works from the start and was always planned to be announced later. They also stated they scrapped the phone version because they didn't want to wait for phone technology to catch up to a point they liked.

*** [[Final Fantasy XII]] started development as early as the beginning of the 2000s. It had originally been slated for release in 2004, but then was pushed back to 2005 due to development problems, but was pushed back ''again'' and finally saw release in late 2006, after the Fabula Nova Crystallis metaseries had been announced.

* ''Crimsonland 2'' is certainly taking its sweet time to appear.

** Given a [[Shout-Out]] in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' with a special grave stone in Netherstorm Outland for Nova, the would-be protagonist, with the N.O.V.A written on it. Nova herself appeared as a stealthed blood elf next to the grave at one point but has since been removed. The grave stone is known as the Nova Shrine among players.

** Blizzard never actually canceled it (despite what some people may say) and keep saying they have plans to MAYBE finish the game (hence its "Postponed Indefinitely" status). Whether or not this can be taken as a glimmer of hope is up to you. Given the fact that Diablo 3 was in development for 11 years before release and survived the closing of Blizzard North in 2005, it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

** ''[[Sonic Rivals]]'' was code-named ''Project S'' in early development. The same name also referred to a fangame supervised by Chris Senn, which was originally going to be based on ''Sonic X-Treme''. This caused some confusion in 2006 when ''Sonic Rivals'' was released, but when what was done of the fangame was released too, it became obvious that the two had nothing in common.

* ''[[STALKER|S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl]]'' was a clear victim of both this trope ''and'' rushing the game to stores in a [[Obvious Beta|messy half-finished state]] that makes the [[What Could Have Been|unrealized potential]] all the more obvious.

** The Mac and Linux versions were originally going to ship in the same box as the Windows version, as full versions with development tools. About a week before release, Bioware announced that the Mac version was going to be a separate SKU after [[Mac Soft]] ported it, which they were going to start doing [[Real Soon Now]], the Linux version would be available for download eventually, and neither would include the development tools. Mac and Linux users were a bit upset.

* ''[[Fallout]] 3'' spent five years in development at Black Isle studios, and was almost at a releasable stage in development, when Interplay went belly-up in 2003 and closed Black Isle down. [[Bethesda Softworks]] eventually acquired the rights to develop the game for a late 2008 release, but opted to begin entirely from scratch, meaning that Black Isle's "Van Buren" version of the game will likely never see the light of day, outside of the leaked tech demo that the ''Fallout'' community began distributing in 2007.

** Yet another notorious Spectrum effort was Spirit Software's ''Formula One'', which promised greatest ever realism because it included a ''steering wheel'' peripheral (at a time when joysticks were not standardised but were an expensive add-on which were at least usable for many games). Adverts ran for literally years until the game eventually dribbled out onto the market to poor reviews and annoyance that the "peripheral" wasn't something you plugged into the computer, it was a cardboard ring that you rolled across the keyboard.

* Will Wright's ''[[Spore]]'' was once considered by many to be vaporware, as it was announced in 2000 under the title "Sim Everything" and wasn't released until September 2008.

* The Nintendo 64's path through history was littered by the emaciated bodies of partially developed games. Some, like ''[[Robotech]]: Crystal Dreams'', ''[[Fire Emblem]] 64'', ''[[Nintendo Wars|64 Wars]]'' and the above ''Earthbound 64'', simply collapsed under their own weight and died. Others, like efforts toward a 3D ''[[Kirby]]'' game and sequel to ''Mario 64'', produced various side-projects in lieu of their originally intended design. In fact, the N64 was ''legendary'' for this sort of thing, with games supposed to be launch titles stuck in development for years afterwards (''Body Harvest'', ''Mission: Impossible'') and swapping between multiple development teams, executive meddling, and ultimately numerous cancellations. None of this helped the flagging fortunes of the system as gamers frustrated by the long software droughts often abandoned Nintendo for the more reliable Playstation lineup.

** Remember ''Freak Boy''? No? Didn't think so.

* [[Rare]] picked up quite a few of these in the hey day of the N64 and Gamecube era, each of which deserves its own entry:

** One of the ''first'' platformers announced for the [[Nintendo 64]] was a game called ''Conker's Quest.'' The cute platformer starring a child-friendly squirrel was intended to be a counterpart to the more complicated platformers of the time. This incarnation of Conker even made a cameo (along with future Rare star [[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo]]) in ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'' later the same year, intended to pave the way for his future franchise. Though initially shown at E3 in 1997, ''Conker's Quest'' disappeared for awhile before resurfacing in 1998 as ''Conker's Twelve Tales''. Footage of this incarnation can found floating the net. Another game based on this version of the character came out in 1999 for the Game Boy Color, ''Conker's Pocket Tales'', but there was still no sign of the N64 version. In 2000, in what many at first assumed to be an April Fool's prank, Rare unveiled that they'd completely tossed out all work on the child-friendly ''Conker's Quest'', retooling it into ''[[Conker's Bad Fur Day]]'', a violent, sexually charged platforming parody of gaming culture, its genre, and pop culture in general. When everyone realized that Rare was ''serious'', pandemonium broke out. This essentially consigned the original ''Conker'' game to the mists of vaporware history, though fans of the game that finally came out don't seem too broken up about it.

*** Its sequel, ''[[Perfect Dark|Perfect Dark Zero]]'', was originally announced for the Gamecube, with art of an anime-styled Joanna leaking around but few details. After the sale of Rare to Microsoft, the game was announced again for the Xbox. Like fellow refugee ''Kameo'', however, ''[[Perfect Dark|Perfect Dark Zero]]'' got pushed back long enough that it turned into a launch title for the Xbox 360 instead.

** ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' was originally scheduled to be released in November 1997, as Nintendo's big game for the Christmas season; ultimately, it had to be pushed back to Summer 1998 and Nintendo replaced it with ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]''.

** ''Banjo-Tooie'' launched several years late in 2000, without the "Stop n' Swop" feature that would interact with ''Banjo-Kazooie'' which ''Banjo-Kazooie'' itself had promoted, even showing images of these sequences being activated. For years, people speculated as to the loss of the feature, leading people to eventually uncover a patent that appeared to mirror the process by using a feature of the N64 that involved storing data for roughly 60 seconds after shutdown. Speculation led to many fans concluding that, because later models of the system could not hold data this long, the feature had to be dropped due to it no longer being technically feasible. "Stop n' Swop" eventually returned - on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade releases almost a decade later.

* In a curious twist, many people believed ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' would fulfill this trope - but not only did the game come out, it was actually pretty good and received much critical and commercial success.

* ''[[X-COM]]'' games ''Genesis'' and ''Alliance'' were eagerly expected after years of development, but given the various studio shifts that Microprose suffered at the time, they were permanently delayed/cancelled.

* ''[[Freelancer]]'' was announced in 1999, and the first demo was shown at E3 in 2000; back then, Digital Anvil promised entire worlds with moving transports, changing weather, dynamic economies, lots and lots of side quests and a non-linear story, you could buy and set up your own base, and the NPCs had their own personalities. However, Digital Anvil soon ran out of money, the owners had to sell the company to Microsoft Games, and while they were gathering up the needed money, they had to stop and scale down the goals of the project. Four years later, in 2003, the game was finally released: the economy was now static, the NPCs had a painfully generic personality, the worlds were reduced to pretty-looking menus, the storyline was made 100% linear (and oddly ends fairly early in the game before 80% of the content is even unlocked), and the side quests were removed. However, the final product ''did not suck'', and still stands today as an example of excellent game design. The graphics ''were'' extremely outdated however.

* [[Working Designs]] initially announced a United States release of the [[Sega Saturn]] version of ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'' in 1995. It was delayed for three years before finally being released after the console itself was officially dead in America (for six months). The first year of delay was for mostly unknown reasons (most likely relating to the vast amount of voice work involved), but the other two years were no doubt due to Bernie Stolar (head of Sega of America at the time) and his draconian policy towards third party developers. The game was actually finished for a good amount of time, but due to Stolar's involvement, it took a large amount of time before it was finally released - so long that it ended up the last Saturn game ever to come out in the United States.

** Another part of the problem was a hard drive crash that deleted sections of the source code for that game (and several other Working Designs projects), forcing the developers to replace the lost sections from scratch.

* Speaking of ''[[Half Life]]'', the fan film [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixFf4ljuCg Escape From City 17] has seen an update (which just stripped away some of the unnecessary dialogue) and a teaser for the second part, those were in October 2009 and nothing has yet been seen since.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lyUNs7eNhs&feature=channel_video_title Part two has been released], so now we need to wait and see what they do with the rest of the series.

* ''[[League of Legends]]'' champions Evelynn and Twitch were severely nerfed by Riot in late 2010. By Riot's own admission, this was to get people to stop playing them - they intentionally broke the characters beyond all reasonable viability. This was so they could retool the characters' mechanics, and an overall stealth mechanic for the whole game. It was said that the rework would arrive very soon. [[Lampshade Hanging|After all, they wouldn't intentionally destroy two characters for over a year, right?]] Almost 2012, place your bets.

** As of June 2012, this still hasn't happened yet.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'' for the Gamecube came close to being called Vaporware and even picked up one of Wired's Vaporware Awards, but eventually hit the shelves... as a launch title for the ''Wii'' with added motion sensing controls, and a bit after for the console it was originally made for. While the official announcement was "only" three years prior, only Nintendo knows for how long the title had been in development.

** As of 2008, Nintendo announced they won't talk about new games until they are far enough in development it's clear they will be released to stores. This is done mostly to prevent Vaporware and [[Hype Backlash]] (but [[Rule of Perception]] means the [[Fan Dumb]] thinks games aren't being developed at all).

** Keep in mind that Miyamoto often pushes the releases for games back because of his philosophy "A late game can eventually be good, but a bad game is bad forever."

* After its cancellation, [[Joss Whedon]] expressed interest in further exploring the universe of ''[[Firefly]]'' as an MMORPG, and there was even evidence that it was in the works; Penny Arcade even remarked on it ("Everyone just rolls shaman"). There's been little word on the game since 2006, and while developer Dark-Cryo has picked up the pieces of what was developed, they seem to be doing so without authorization from 20th Century Fox or Mutant Enemy.

** Along the same creator, there was supposed to be some episodic game by him coming out exclusively on Gametap. It was on the Coming Soon list without much info for a while. It then quietly disappeared.

* ''[[Harvest Moon]]'' games, and indeed most anything localized by Natsume, are notorious for being delayed months or even years at a time before finally being released. Most fans know that any release date is tentative at best and could be pushed back at any time right up to the day before release (''A Wonderful Life'', anyone?). You're probably safe if you assume that "release date" means "will likely be released within a year of this date."

** The American release of ''Tree Of Tranquility'' was pushed back numerous times, finally being released more than a year after the Japanese version and still shipped with a [[Game Breaking Bug]], which they took their sweet time fixing as well in a very quiet recall.

** Just how slow Natsume is was further emphasized when Marvelous let [[XSEED Games]], which it has partnered with on other games, handle localization of ''[[Rune Factory: Frontier]]''. The result? The game came out mere months after the Japanese release with ''zero'' delays.

* ''[[Jet Moto]] 4'' for the [[PlayStation 2]], which was semi-officially announced, but never started, probably due to poor sales of ''[[Jet Moto]] 3'' (which came out in the [[PS 1]]'s dying days).

* Three games based on ''[[Star Wars]] [[Return of the Jedi]]'' were announced by Parker Bros. for the [[Atari 2600]], but they only released one, ''Death Star Battle'', before abandoning video games due to [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]]. A prototype of "Game I" (also known as ''Ewok Adventure'') was discovered, but the second game, whose concept art suggests being based on the Battle of Sarlacc's Pit, appears to have never been programmed. Other unreleased titles announced by Parker Bros. included ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]: Journey to Rivendell'', ''McDonald's'', ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'', and a [[James Bond]] game based on the [[Traintop Battle]] from ''[[Octopussy]]''; prototypes of the first two have emerged.

* The equivalents of ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'' in the ''[[Doom]]'' [[Game Mod|modding]] community are ''Mordeth'' Episode 2 and ''Millennium''. ''Mordeth'' in particular is so notorious for this that the Cacowards' "longest development time" award is named the "Mordeth Award" in its honor.

* ''[[Alan Wake]]'' was originally previewed at E3 2005 alongside the Xbox 360 announcement, and was expected to be released some time in 2006. The game then promptly disappeared and the developers went very quiet, releasing a very vague trailer and a handful of screenshots in the space of 3 years. It was long assumed to be languishing in development hell, until E3 2009, where the game appeared again apparently very far along in development. As of May 2010, it was finally released to mostly positive reviews, although many critics felt that the end product didn't justify its development time. Especially since it ended up with less than what was promised, such as free-roaming and a PC version of the game.

* Freeware developer [[Seiklus|tapeworm]] has been working on ''Velella'' for nearly five years, and ''Avaus'' for three. On his site, he mentioned he wants to have ''Avaus'' done by the end of 2007, then struck it through and appended 2008. Well, it's 2011 now...

* ''[[Halo]]'' was, originally, an extremely impressive project with graphics beyond stunning, especially for being developed by such a small team, and expected to come out at the end of the year 2000 or beginning of 2001. Then creator Bungie was bought by Microsoft, who decided to use it as an exclusive title to support the launch of their upcoming [[Xbox]]. The game WAS a smashing success on that console, but the PC version was delayed by over 2 years (We're talking longer than ''Daikatana'' here), and when it finally came out, was a mildly interesting but bland standard shooter riddled by grindingly dull [[Copy and Paste Environments]]. The result is that ''Halo'' is a powerhouse franchise on the [[Xbox]], but a pathetic joke of a franchise on the PC.

** ''[[Halo]]'' was originally supposed to come out exclusively on the Macintosh operating system, as Bungie had been producing games exclusively for Mac for years before (the ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' franchise anyone?), making the buyout by Microsoft that much more painful. The fact that the Mac port took longer than the Windows port was just salt in the wound.

* The recent ''[[Gran Turismo]]'' games, particularly ''Gran Turismo'' for the PSP, have their experience in this field. The PSP iteration was announced at E3 2004 as ''Gran Turismo 4 Mobile'', and was scheduled for release in 2005. However, due to the frankly astonishing amount of content that will apparently be in ''GT5'' (close to 1000 cars and around 70 variations of 20 tracks), the bigger project demanded most of Polyphony Digital's 100+ development staff, causing the PSP game to be stuck in development until its eventual release over ''5 years after its announcement''. An interesting case of one game being stuck in a long development phase directly causing ''another'' game to also get stuck in development.

* ''[[Robotech]]: Crystal Dreams'' for the N64 slipped into vaporware oblivion when its developer, Gametek, went belly-up. Only a ROM of the demo version exists.

* ''[[GURPS|GURPS Online]]''. It's still advertised in the text for ''GURPS 4th Edition.''

** For that matter, many of the online tools for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (Especially the online game table app) have still not been released, despite advertising that they would be bundled with 4th edition on release in 2008.

* ''[[Too Human]]'' started development in 1998 for the [[PlayStation]]. It was later moved to the [[Game Cube]] when Nintendo announced an official partnership with developer Silicon Knights, but Silicon Knights started developing [[Eternal Darkness|two]] [[Metal Gear Solid|other games]] and ''Too Human'' got left behind. Eventually it started development for the Xbox 360 and came out in 2008. The finished product was generally considered underwhelming by reviewers, and quickly forgotten by all but the most die-hard fans.

* The English version of ''Digimon RPG'' ran into some delays after the site that would be hosting it disappeared. It finally came out in 2010 under the title of ''Digimon Battle''.

* ''[[Ghostbusters the Video Game|Ghostbusters: The Video Game]]'' oscillated between this and [[Development Hell]]. It was finally complete, and in time for a Halloween 2008 release, when the publisher decided ''not to publish it'' without warning. Frantic searching for a publisher meant that it was finally released June 16, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the original ''Ghostbusters'' movie. It would appear that the delay (which the developers used to polish the game and fix bugs in the engine) actually helped out, too; the game received overall positive reviews and may have reignited interest in a third ''Ghostbusters'' movie.

* The last ''[[Commander Keen]]'' game ends with an ad for "Commander Keen in The Universe is Toast!", planned for Christmas 1992. It never happened—their publisher at the time, Apogee, offered more guaranteed money for [[Wolfenstein 3D|a game featuring John Carmack's new 3-D engine]] rather than a sidescroller. What makes this vaporware instead of a mere tease is that it's never really been officially abandoned, and a couple of the creators still insist they'd like to make the sequel.

* Another classic that promised a never-to-appear sequel was [[Infocom]]'s take on ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'', potentially called ''Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe''. Delays, including the development of ''Bureaucracy'' (also written by Douglas Adams), meant the game was delayed, with Infocom eventually going bankrupt before the sequel could be made. All that is left to show for it are some of Douglas Adams' notes and a very, ''very'' small amount of code with nothing more than a few locations on the surface of Magrathea, only two of which have any description whatsoever. All of the code, what little there is, is playable online [http://waxy.org/random/software/milliways/milliways_release15.html here]. A complete history (as complete as anyone can make it, anyway) can be found [http://waxy.org/2008/04/milliways_infocoms_unreleased_sequel_to_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galax/ here].

* A couple of years after ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' was given its release Square turned to a Western PC game company to oversee a PC release of ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'', but due to communication breakdowns between the company and Squaresoft Japan (and the company pretty much not caring about video games at all in the first place) that project was scrapped too. A remnant of their work exists: They are the source of the [[Blind Idiot Translation]] that ''V'' got in the ''Final Fantasy Anthology'' for the [[PlayStation]], released in 1999.

* Freeware space exploration simulator ''[http://www.anywherebb.com/ Noctis IV]'' saw a good (and justified, given how an entire galaxy was squeezed in 700 kilobytes of data) popularity in the early 2000s; the author announced ''Noctis V'', a version with native Windows support, a renewed engine and many more new features and adjustments, around that time. For a while, it completely fell off the radar, and contributions to the NIV starmap weren't even included in the game anymore. Then, support to NIV resumed and its source code was released, but as of July 2009 (when the author once again assured that he hasn't given up on the project), NV ''still'' hasn't come out, while the older iteration shows more and more the signs of its age (like complete lack of sound and very cumbersome interface).

** Note that Noctis V is taking awhile primarily because its sole developer (who works on it without pay) is currently focusing on writing an entirely new ''programming language'' on which to build the game.

* ''Line's End'', the sequel to the freeware RPG, ''A Blurred Line'', has been eluding expectations of a conclusion to A Blurred Line's engrossing story for several years. The creator seems to have abandoned it in favor of a career in law.

* Most ''[[Virtual Boy]]'' games. It was actually going to have a ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star FOX]]'' and ''[[Super Mario Land]]'' game.

* ''[[Chip's Challenge]] 2''. The original game developer, Chuck Sommerville, produced this sequel, but then the company that had the copyright on the game decided not to have it published.

* ''Metroid: Dread'' was hinted at in the ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' series, and since then, every ''[[Metroid]]'' fan has been demanding to know its status or quick to assume any upcoming title will be ''Dread''. With the announcement of ''[[Metroid: Other M]]'', the first thing Nintendo did was state that it was not, in fact, ''Dread'' under another name, and were coy that such a game was ever even under development. Later, they claimed that it definitely existed, but had been "shelved indefinitely" during work on ''Other M''. More recent interviews have stated that ''Dread'' exists, without a doubt, but no further details about which studio will work on it, where in the timeline it will fit, or when work on it will resume have been released.

** ''[[Metroid Prime]] Hunters'' came dangerously close to becoming vaporware, having been promised to be released on the Nintendo DS' release date, and maybe even included. However, numerous push backs finally brought the game to release several years after intended release date.

* ''[[Freedom Fighters (video game)|Freedom Fighters]]'' had a sequel announced half a year after its release in 2003. Very little has been heard of it since.

* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' [[Fan Translation|fan translations]] are pretty notorious for this. The team doing ''[[Super Robot Wars Judgement]]'' has recently gone on record saying it's unlikely to be done before the equally notorious ''[[SPT Layzner]]'' fansub, which, if it keeps going at its current rate, is expected to be finished sometime around 2016.

** There was also a ''Castlevania'' title in development for the Sega 32X that also got canned when it was obvious that the system was not selling; some of its spritework was recycled for ''[[Symphony of the Night]]'' and ''[[Portrait of Ruin]]''.

* A very meta example: ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'' included a preview of the next game's protagonist, Asagi, as a bonus character. Her game, ''Makai Wars'', has never surfaced so she's become a running gag who [[Hostile Show Takeover|attempts to take over other games for her own]]. In-universe, ''Makai Wars'' was being worked on as a movie for well over a hundred years and ''[[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]]'''s Remake's Axel Mode, tells us that it was scrapped during or after the game, and they skipped directly to ''Makai Wars 2''.

* It is a very common trope in independent game makers to plan out plots or characters and sometimes go as far as produce screenshots or artwork, only for the place updates of the game are posted on to go from frequent to quiet and for the game to eventually (and quietly) be dropped (a common red flag is when the latter updates over-emphasize how close it is to completion or something along the lines of "we're not dead, we're still workin' on it!", yet no real progress is shown otherwise). It is common because the core idea of the game was usually done out of a quick jolt of inspiration or impulse, and, among other reasons, die either because the creator's interest in the game waned, it turned out to be too much work (and if the engine in question isn't freeware or fully freeware, costly) than they expected, conflicting thoughts between the group (especially if the original creator was more dis-organized, inexperienced or [[Small Name, Big Ego|holier than thou]] than the rest of the dev team they hired), personal reasons (school, work, personal life, we've all heard it before), or legal reasons (especially if said work was a fanfic embodied in a game, was a painfully obvious cut-and-paste of another source, or was meant as a fan-remake of another game). It has come to a point now that if there was someone out there that plotted out ideas for a game and was looking for a team, most would more than likely say "screenshots/demo/(privately-transferred-)prototype or it isn't serious." It is especially common in community boards dedicated to freeware game-making programs such as RPG Maker, Game Maker, DS Maker, Ren'py, Blade, Novelty, some ROM hack projects and tools, and so on.

* ''Nexus: The Jupiter Incident'', produced by Mithis and HD Publishing, released way back in 2005, was scedualed to have a Nexus 2 come out later in 2007. Its 2011. Many claim that no ship-to-ship space combat sim produced since has ever rivaled it, yet only a crusty layer of dust-caked die-hards can even remember its name. This is probably past vaporware by now...

* ''[[Mega Man Legends]] 3'' wound up being [http://www.capcom-unity.com/devroom/blog/2011/07/18/a_message_from_capcom unceremoniously cancelled in July 2011], after a promising start from positive fan reception, eventually culminating in Capcom's own disappointment in the project.

* ''[[Rosenkreuzstilette]] Freudenstachel'' is developing a reputation as this - it was originally intended to be released Summer 2009. As of August 2011, it still isn't out, and there is not a tentative release date.

* ''[[Garou Mark of the Wolves]] 2'' and ''[[Last Blade]] 3'' were apparently in development when [[SNK]] collapsed in 2001.

* ''[[Postal]] III'' was officially announced way back in 2006, with development going even further back, and the first gameplay footage was released in 2008. It was released in 2012 in an [[Obvious Beta]] state and was trashed by most of those who played it.

** ''Lufia: Beginning of a Legend'' for the [[Game Boy]] Color, originally in development alongside ''Ruins Chaser''.

* ''[[Doom (series)|Doom 4]]'' was first announced in 2008, but has repeatedly hit delays due to id Software being bought out by Zenimax, as well as development resources being channeled into ''[[Rage (video game)|Rage]]'', and is not expected to be released until 2013.

* ''Dead Phoenix'', a [[Rail Shooter]] starring a [[Winged Humanoid]] named Phoenix, was one of the "[[Capcom]] Five" set of games announced for the [[Nintendo GameCube]], and the only one that wound up being canceled.

* ''Agent'' by Rockstar. Revealed at e3 2006 as a Playstation 3 exclusive title, and has been MIA since. As of 2012, nothing has been shown of the title other than the logo.

 

== Video Game Systems & Peripherals ==

* Nintendo's CD-ROM add-on for the [[SNES]]—also known as the PlayStation X -- which not only never materialized, but resulted in the Sony [[PlayStation]] and the worst slump in the company's history.

* The 64DD, a disk drive for the Nintendo64. By the time it was released in 1999, everyone had long since lost interest, and it never saw the light of day outside Japan.

* Many of the designs invented by Active Enterprises were doomed to fail from the start, but the most ambitious of these was their planned portable gaming console, the '''Action Gamemaster''': Conceived as a massive, foot-and-a-half wide beast with a 3.2 inch screen, this system would not only be compatible with proprietary game discs (including "killer app" Cheetahmen 3), but it would also house an expansion port that would accommodate cartridges for the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]], the [[Super Nintendo]] and the [[Sega Genesis]], and it could also be used as a portable television set, with a projected price point of '''''500 dollars'''''. It seems as though Active were truly ahead of their time with their idea for a multisystem portable - many of the Gamemaster's features now seem to have manifested in Sony's [[PlayStation Portable]] instead.

** Multiplatform support? Bigger than original [[Xbox]]? Sounds like Richard DaLuz's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFGQnU4TaYU Super Genintari].

* The Control-Vision VHS-based console for which the [[Full Motion Video]] games ''[[Night Trap]]'' and ''[[Sewer Shark]]'' were originally developed.

* The Sega Neptune, an integrated [[Sega Genesis|Mega Drive/Genesis and 32X]], which was swiftly canceled when it became apparent how absurd releasing this would be (as indeed releasing the 32X already had been) when the Saturn was just around the corner.

* ''Wii Vitality Sensor'' was shown at e3 2009. It has not been shown again or talked about since by Nintendo. Some video game journalists seriously doubt that project was ever real and the sensor itself was just a mock up shown because Nintendo didn't have anything new or interesting to reveal at e3 that year.

* The [[Konix Multisystem]], a british console that definitely got past the prototype stage was looking pretty good before it disappeared.

* Wintersun's second studio album ''Time'' was originally slated for release in November 2006, and was pushed back to August 2007. When August 2007 came, it was postponed to 2008. It still has yet to be released and no date has been given. However, if frontman Jari Mäenpää is to be believed it is nearing completion and only 2 songs remain to be recorded.

* [http://immortalshandbook.com Immortal's Handbook], a third-party splatbook for Dungeons & Dragons. Take a look at all the products mentioned, compared to what is actually being sold. The front page, at a glance, seems to be 60% "look at all the cool stuff that I'm making!" and 39%, apologizing for not updating or releasing anything for years.

* Speaking of D&D, the newest (so far) 4th edition never received a promised Virtual Tabletop app.

* IPv6, the replacement Internet protocol for IPv4. No clue when it's going to see widespread deployment, let alone when it will fully replace IPv4... and now that the last IPv4 block has been given away, the problem is growing more acute by the day. IPv6 will require a wholesale updating of hardware, firmware, and software, along with major networking changes, that most companies are loathe to pay for in a recession, despite the writing being on the wall for a decade.

* Bruce Coville's ''[[The Unicorn Chronicles]]''. After writing books one and two in fairly quick succession (1994 and 1999 respectively), and leaving the captive audience with a massive cliffhanger, he then dropped off the face of the earth for nine years before publishing the third book in 2008…which ends with another cliffhanger. Coville even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in his author's note, saying that he feared fans of the first books would have outgrown the series before he finished it.

* Stephenie Meyer began a [[POV Sequel]] for the ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' series, entitled ''Midnight Sun''. She originally hoped to publish it in 2008, but after a partial draft was leaked, she put it off indefinitely, saying she wouldn't touch the novel again until she was "sure everyone's forgotten about it."

 

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[[Category:Trivia Trope]]

[[Category:Videogame Culture]]