DayZ Creator Urges Players to Accept Game Delays as Normal

Dean Hall, the creator of DayZ, has asked players to help change how people think about video game delays. He says players “have the power” to tell platform holders that delays are acceptable.

Hall’s latest game, Icarus, first launched on PC in 2021. Since then, it has received many updates. In late January, it was announced that the console version of Icarus would release on February 26. However, three weeks later, the release date was moved to March 26. The team said they needed more time to “polish the gameplay and ensure the best possible launch”.

On Tuesday, Hall hosted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit. He invited players to ask questions about Icarus, survival games, and especially about game delays.

At the start of the session, Hall mentioned several delays from his studio, RocketWerkz. These included the Dangerous Horizons DLC for the PC version of Icarus, which “has been delayed many times since we first announced it”. He also mentioned Stationeers, which “has been in Early Access for ten years”, and Kitten Space Agency, where “we delayed the public build many times to ensure quality”. Now, the console version of Icarus has also been delayed.

Hall explained that players need to speak up and say clearly that they are okay with delays. He believes developers and publishers focus too much on hitting target release dates.

“Games cost a lot of money to make,” he said. “Timing makes a tremendous difference to the cost of a game, so there can be huge impacts with delays releasing a game. Players want quality and certainty, but it is my belief that developers latch onto this and get ‘target fixation’ about launches.

“Some of this is because of revenue pressures, but much of it is wrapped up in perception. We are here today to break this perception.
“Failure to delay also leads to ‘crunch culture’. So I am here today on a mission – let us normalize delaying games. You as consumers have the power to make it clear to platform holders (Xbox, PlayStation) that delays are okay.”

During the session, Hall was also asked why delays happen, especially for reasons that players may not know about.

“I think most delays happen due to a failure to hit quality,” he replied. “And even when devs want to provide quality, they don’t have the money they can spend to hit it. So they try and hide it, or ignore it. This is what happened with the Icarus launch and we paid the price of going to Mixed [reviews on Steam].

“As the studio got more fund security, we tried to break this cycle. But it is hard. We play the game, as a consumer would (no cheating), in the lead up to launch. Then we do ‘go/no-go’ meetings where we discuss if we met the quality bar we wanted.”

Later, a player suggested that complaints about delays often focus on the result, not the real cause. Hall agreed.

“This is very true,” Hall replied. “And part of that is because developers tend not to talk with communities – they talk at them via many layers of marketing, lawyers, management and ‘community managers’.
“I think it is really important to be genuine when talking to community. Which means sometimes you have to tell people what they don’t want to hear (e.g. we can’t fix X because we made Y decision early).

“If you can establish that rapport with your players, then it makes it easier to have genuine conversations about delays and why you are doing them – without all the corporate doublespeak. Like ‘we are delaying the game because we felt there wasn’t enough missions’, or ‘there were just too many bugs taking away from the experience’, or ‘the rewards in the missions were just not good enough’ (all true reasons for us delaying stuff).”

Icarus is now available for pre-order on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Hall also shared his personal opinion about pre-orders.

“Personally – don’t pre-order games, folks,” Hall said, adding: “Commercially – please pre-order games, as it’s the only way PlayStation / Xbox notice us.”

Through this discussion, Hall wants players to understand that delays can help improve game quality and reduce crunch. He believes that if players openly support delays, the industry may feel less pressure to release unfinished games.