With Valve's vague "delay" mail, regarding Half-Life 2, an excessive amount of speculation was generated. It now seems that we may have our first candidate release date for the game. Confirmation of the delay was itself delayed with the companies involved refusing to offer any comment. It now appears however, that the business side of things had to shed some light in order to avoid a massive cancelation of pre-orders.
According to a Megagames reader, Amazon in the U.K. have sent him a letter suggesting that H-L 2 will be released on December 1, 2003. The full letter reads:
Thank you for ordering "Half Life 2" for Amazon.co.uk.
Unfortunately we have been informed that the release of this title has been delayed. We have now been informed that "Half Life 2" is due for release around 01/12/2003, but we are waiting on final confirmation of this from the publisher. Once we have more accurate information on this title we will update you.
We will keep this title on order for you unless you prefer to cancel. As soon as we are able to obtain copies, we will dispatch your order to you. We will also do our best to keep you informed of any new developments as soon as we hear of them...
and you will get those details from us as we get them.
It is official, Half-Life 2 has slipped and will not be released September 30th as had initially been announced. What is even more worrying is that Valve have not given an official date but simply state that they expect the game to become available at some point over the holiday season.
Valve'S marketing director, Doug Lombardi issued the following statement:
The previously announced September 30th release date for Half-Life 2 is being pushed back. We are currently targeting a holiday release, but do not have a specific 'in-store' date to share at this time. We will release that information as soon as we have confirmed a new date.
It is a mystery why Valve had to wait for a week before the planned release in order to announce such a delay, as it also remains a mystery if the reasons behind this delay are the same ones that led Vivendi to announce a delay in late July. At the time Valve had shrugged off that announcement by the game's publisher and had denied any delay.
The whole marketing strategy behind H-L 2 has managed to confuse and greatly frustrate gamers who had been dreaming of the moment they would finaly get their wish.
The finished product, and the business behind it, better be really worth all this pain and suffering.
