No, the launch date hasn't been announced yet, but in this devlog Flying Lab Software CEO, Rusty Williams says the process is moving forward and he describes some details about the process of setting a date, and it turns out that it's a little more involved than closing your eyes and pointing to a calendar.
I realize the subject of when we're shipping is a hot topic for the community. As you may expect, it's a hot topic for us as well. When I talked about the distribution issues earlier, I had expected that the issue would be closed by now and that we'd have announced the new date. Needless to say, this hasn't happened. That's not to say that we haven't made progress (a first draft of the contract was delivered), but it's still not done.
As anyone who's been through this process can tell you, there are always language issues, control issues, and even when everyone's largely in sync, these things can take a long time (as they have). No matter how much you (and I!!!) wish it, there's no "just get it done". There's working through the issues, clearing up confusion, and making sure everyone's on the same page.
Part of what has taken so long is that I'm 100% dedicated to maintaining control of the game. That's a very unique position in this industry, and honestly, I don't think a contract like this has ever been done, so there's a lot of education that has to occur. And while I know that the length of time is frustrating to our fans, Pirates is a long-term project for us. We have a lot of long-range plans for the game after we launch and we intend to be working on it for quite a few years. So I'm not going to rush a contract in order to "get it done" - it has to be done right.
I wish I could say more, but NDAs with other companies restrict what I can talk about. I will say that I'm talking with good people with good intentions, and we're working through things.
What I can talk about is June. Clearly, we've been hoping to announce the new date along with a lot of other concrete information and new partnerships that we've been developing. A lot of these will be very exciting to you (especially our European friends), and I'm looking forward to talking about it. But I don't want to leave you hanging while we continue with the contract process. If I knew what I know now, I'd have done this earlier, but better now than later.
;)
Read the full devlog here.
