Today, 38 Studios made a big announcement. The announcement is that they’re going to make a big announcement this time next year. If that makes no sense whatsoever, consider the source. This studio is rapidly becoming famous for announcements about engine licensing deals, executive hirings, and nothing at all. They even gave a presentation about the building they work in, and the baked goods they celebrate holidays and birthdays with. No, I’m not kidding. In their unending quest for attention, this is the kind of thing they do with regularity.

In another display of PR and marketing “professionalism”, a 38 Studios rep says, “Our current plan is to announce the name of the game and launch the IP website (as opposed to the corporate website) about this time next year.”

Right. Big news. We already knew that info about this “supposed” MMO, in the works for some time now, was going to reach us at one point or another. Non-news statements like this from 38 Studios are, quite frankly, mind-numbing. Why the need to make an announcement about this now? Is it just to string us along? Again? That seems to be the consensus.

38 Studios assumes gamers don’t understand all the fuss….and they’re right. So, the aforementioned rep sets us straight:

“From my perspective, one of the wonderful things about is all the interest that you get because you have these big names. They open doors. Sometimes you don’t want these doors to be opened quite so early, though, so that’s the yin and yang of having noteworthy visionaries like we do in our startup company. When it takes four years to develop a product, we have to find the right times to release information. We have lots of things going on internally; of course, it’s finding that right state of readiness ? maybe two to two and half years before release. The time of when we release substantial information about our project is tricky. With a company like ours, where we have some ‘famous people’ as leaders, it gives us a chance to decide how we want to go about it.”

What does Thom the new guy from 38 Studios have to say?

“With most startups you need to release information to make a big splash when the company is announced, but in our case we’ve already made a big splash just with the names on the Marquee.”

Ah, we get it now. We just don’t understand this NEW form of marketing because now there are “celebrities” involved….interesting. The problem is that gamers aren’t celebrity-watchers. They’re gamers, not the paparazzi. Most gamers could really care less WHO’S making the MMO as much as we care about WHAT the MMO is all about; gamers would also like to know if a game is attention worthy, if it’s just going to be more vaporware, or if the game is a horrible mess that takes up hard drive space.

We don’t mean to piss 38 Studios off, although we’re pretty successful at doing that. We’re just holding them to the same standard any no-name developer would be held to. Just because they have minor celebs (come on, your average gamer doesn’t care who Curt Shilling is, and R.A. Salvatore is a mildly interesting footnote) doesn’t mean that they can just do whatever they want. Despite this, they consistently have a “Look at us, we’re celebrities” vibe to everything they do.

Come to think of it, maybe it does…..but they will most likely increasingly tick some gamers off in the process….not a good idea. In any case, we won’t be writing this IP web/title release date down on any calendar….because the announcement next year will probably be another non-announcement. As is apt with 38 Studios, information comes and goes like the wind.

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***UPDATE***

Leave it to TenTonHammer to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease! They managed to finagle some in-game concept art from 38 Studios. Check them out:

Just when we had almost lost all hope, the evil Munch strikes again, and 38 Studios actually released a bit of imagery. Sure, it’s completely generic, and yeah, it looks like fan art. But still…they released something. Maybe, just maybe, this means that 38 Studios is going to start 1) acting like gaming professionals, and 2) starting talking about content instead of about themselves. This might just be a good sign.

Maybe.

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