Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is about to put itself in position to overtake Duke Nukem Forever for the all-time vaporware gold medal. It doesn't actually receive the distinction until/unless it actually releases, but given the hype around (and warm reception of) Half-Life: Alyx, I'd say we can change the odds of a release from "never o'clock" to "slightly more likely than being struck by lighting while redeeming a winning lottery ticket".
Anyway, here's the piece of information 99% of people are coming here to see: the moment in time that happens.
The all-time vaporware title, as we all know, has to go to Duke Nukem Forever. Now, of course, we're not really talking about vaporware here, since Duke Nukem Forever has now actually released. It's not really worth it to talk about actual vaporware, though, since there's essentially an infinite number of software projects that were started and never finished (or, more charitably, are not yet finished). So, in order to have something worth talking about, the vaporware award is for a project that did eventually release, but kept its fanbase waiting in limbo for the longest time possible.
I'll be honest, I made this page specifically to address the "DNF vs HL2:E3" situation. However, as I was doing a final once-over before announcing it to the world (or, at least, what I thought was going to be a final once-over...), it occurred to me that it'd be fun to have a whole list of winners and contenders, listed in order with placing. There has to be a very high bar of social impact to make the list (otherwise it'll just grow so huge as to be meaningless), but I still think there's some good old fashioned humor to be had there. If you're interested, open an issue in the issue tracker with the thing you want to add (doesn't have to be a game, or even software for that matter) and your supporting research around the estimate and/or release timestamps. Anyway, that's why the page looks a little hodgepodge and the Javascript is an embarrassing mess of spaghetti code and hardcoded values; the deadline for when I wanted to post it isn't moving and I'm literally coding it up to the last second; right now, it just has to do this. :)
These are the actual winners; the things that eventually released after keeping the fans waiting for the longest amount of time. The "Duration" value is the number of seconds between the initial release estimate and the actual release.
| Placing | Name of game, etc. | Initial release estimate | Actual release | Vaporware duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Duke Nukem Forever | 1998-10-01 11:59:59 UTC | 2011-06-09 10:00:00 UTC | 400,370,401 |
These are the things that are still unreleased, but have enough people still bearing a torch that they're worth keeping track of. The "Placing (1)" value is where this item would place in the records if it released at this moment, and the "Placing (2)" value is where it would place if all the contenders were released at this moment.
| Name of game, etc. | Initial release estimate |
|---|---|
| Half-Life 2: Episode 3 | 2007-12-26 11:59:59 UTC |
The "vaporware duration" is the amount of time from the initial release estimate (when the creator said it would be released) to the actual release. In the case of the current record (Duke Nukem Forever), that's 12 years, 8 months, 1 week, 22 hours, and 1 second. We can't use that measurement directly, though, because years and months aren't all the same length.
What we can do is convert the two timestamps to UTC, then calculate the number seconds between the two. That's what's in the "Vaporware duration" column above, and that's how we'll decide who holds the record.
For Duke Nukem Forever, the difference between the two timestamps is 400,370,401 seconds. If we add that much time to HL2:E3's promised release date, we get 10:00:00 AM UTC on September 2, 2020. Since we're talking about breaking the record, we have to add one second, which pushes us to our final target, when Valve will officially be eligible to dethrone 3D Realms/Triptych/Gearbox/Piranha as the holder of the all-time vaporware title. In order to actually claim it, of course, they do in fact have to actually release at some point.
If you're interested in more of the technical nitty-gritty, check out the resources page.
In order to have a proper countdown, I have to decide with to-the-second accuracy what all these dates are, and that requires some research, as well as some arbitrary determinations. Without actually talking directly to the people involved, I can only estimate as fairly and reasonably as possible.
When deciding which time to assign to an event, I'll use the following logic if the actual time isn't specifically known: