How Long is Too long?

To hype, or not to hype?
How much to hype?
When to hype?

Game releases have got to have publishers and developers alike gnawing away at fingertips and pulling out what's left of their hair. Release a game too soon and you sacrifice potential polish time that has the potential to lift the overall impression a game leaves on the gaming public. Wait too long and consumer interest may have been captured by the next guy's shiny new toy.

This has been an interesting year for releases. It seems that publishers have finally got the message that the average gamer doesn't have a spare $2000 to buy all of the games that get crammed into the holiday season. Instead it appears that we're now having Christmas '09 in first quarter 2010.

I'm not complaining. Some of the titles appeared to need some more "polish" (I'm lookin' at you Bioshock 2), and now my wife's anger over my gaming will be more of a slow burn rather than flash fried nuclear holocaust.

I am however getting a little tired of the "it's done when it's done" quote. ID, Blizzard, Valve, and Bioware being some of the greatest abusers of this line. Granted these are currently some of the greatest developers around, but I am losing the buzz for their long teased titles. We've seen what their working on and now I'd like them to go dark on these projects until they actually have a release date. I just don't want to walk up to the counter at my local games shop and handover my well earned dollars for a game which has had all the surprises ruined by a combination of gabby PR people and ravenous media.