Why Some Developers and Gamers Use the Release Date as the Only Measurement, and Why It’s Wrong

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Why Some Developers and Gamers Use the Release Date as the Only Measurement, and Why It’s Wrong

Most people judge a game by its release date because it’s the one moment they see. It’s the moment the game becomes public, the moment marketing pushes it, and the moment the industry says, “Here is the final product—judge it.”
But that’s an illusion. It erases everything that happened before that date.

1. Fans and devs often treat the release date as the “start,” because it’s the first time the public interacts with the game.

For most players, the project doesn’t exist until the trailer drops or the game goes live.
To them, January 31, 2023, is when Undisputed “began.”

But that ignores three years of decisions, pivots, mismanagement, leadership changes, delays, asset swaps, tech choices, and community promises that shaped what the public eventually saw.

If the process was flawed, the product was inevitably going to be flawed—regardless of the release date.

2. The development cycle is the game.

A game isn’t magically born on release day.
A release date is the culmination of years of:

• Vision building

• Engine selection

• System design

• Asset production

• Outsourcing decisions

• Budget and investor pressure

• Team hiring

• Feature prioritization and feature cuts

• Community management

• And countless “we’ll fix it later” choices

Judging Undisputed only by 2023 ignores the fact that the foundation was laid in 2020, and that foundation determined everything that followed.

3. Studios hide behind release dates to avoid accountability.

Many studios—SCI included—use the release date as a shield:

“We released in 2023, so that’s what the game is.”

No.
What the game is represents:

• How they handled 2020

• How transparent they were in 2021

• How polished their early builds were in 2022

• How many systems did they rewrite or abandon

• How they responded when fans raised valid concerns years before release

• How they staffed, who they hired, who they lost

When you judge from 2020 to 2023, you see the whole story—not the marketing-friendly one.

4. Fans fall into the same trap because they weren’t paying attention early.

Casual fans tuned in during 2023.
Hardcore boxing gamers were watching in 2020, 2021, 2022—and saw the drastic shifts in tone, quality, gameplay philosophy, and company behavior.

When people only look at the release date, they erase:

• The original simulation vision

• The Ten24-quality models

• The realistic movement test footage

• The community-led development approach

• The early transparency SCI used to build hype

• The massive pivot away from the promised game

You only see the “present,” not the broken promises.

5. The real measurement is the lifespan of development, not the moment of release.

A release date is simply:

• Marketing

• Publishing

• A timestamp

But development is:

• Vision

• Execution

• Philosophy

• Integrity

• Skill

• Management

• Follow-through

If a studio had three years to build something and delivered far less than they marketed, that’s a development failure, not a “release day problem.”

6. Using only the release date helps studios rewrite history.

SCI can say:

“We only worked on this in 2023.”

But everyone who followed the project knows:

• ESBC was revealed in 2020

• The hype was built on 2020–2021 footage

• The early mechanics were better than the final result

• The studio had years of feedback, warnings, and opportunities

• The decline didn’t happen after release—it happened before

Release-day judging helps them erase their own timeline and pretend the problems happened suddenly.

The truth: Undisputed is a 2020–2023 project, not a 2023 project.

You cannot judge a game by the day it “arrived”—you judge it by:

• How it started

• How it evolved

• What promises changed

• What the team prioritized

• What systems they cut or replaced

• What direction they shifted toward

And all of that happened way before 2023.

People use the release date as the measurement because it’s the only moment they see it. But a game’s quality is shaped by its entire development cycle. ESBC/Undisputed was built from 2020–2023. Every decision in those years determined the final product, so judging it by the release date alone hides the real story behind its problems.

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