In the modern era, there are two ways to announce a game:
1. Drag the process out for as long as possible, in the hope that will drive demand, including:
- Some sort of tease for a big reveal;
- Spurious leaks;
- The actual reveal, including the following optional elements:
- A Kickstarter campaign;
- Some other campaign… a Thunderclap or something? I dunno. That might not even be real.
- Do the rounds at the expos and conventions;
- Announce a release date;
- Push back the release date;
- Do the rounds at next year’s expos and conventions;
- Push the release date back again;
- Crunch the hell out of your developers;
- Eventually release the game, hoping that you’ve hit the sweet spot of people still being desperate for it/not losing patience with your shit to the point where they no longer desire the game.
2. Have faith in your product, and your audience, and drop the announcement like a hot mic on the stage. Optional:
- Be a complete badass, and also announce the release date up-front;
- Walk away from that explosion of awesomeness;
- Don’t look back – badasses don’t look at explosions.
It’s fair to say that 2K have done the latter. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, and it’s releasing on October 21, 2016. Oh, and Sean Bean is doing the voiceover.
Boom. Nailed it. 2K out.
