Vaporware Awards

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.