This year's edition of
Wired's annual Vaporware Awards are live (thanks nin), subtitled "Long Live
the King," a tribute to their obvious #1 choice, Duke Nukem Forever, which tops
the list in spite of yesterday's teaser trailer (which almost seems timed to
coincide with this announcement) and its "lifetime achievement" designation in
the
2004
Vaporware Awards (DNF has been a fixture on this list since it first
appeared in 2000 (
story)). The list also includes another two
games in a pair of odd entries, as Spore comes in at
number two even though the ambitious game was only announced a couple of
years ago (
story) and the even odder inclusion of
Diablo III at number seven, in spite of the fact that a third installment in
the RPG series has not yet been announced at all. At one point vaporware was a
term used to describe products that would never appear, but these "awards" seem
to have evolved into a simple list of products that have taken a while to
develop; past honorees include Windows 2000, Windows NT, OS X, Half-Life 2,
Diablo II, high-speed net access, Bluetooth, Warcraft III, and many other
products that were not only eventually released, but were quite successful.