What are your thoughts on Jane Jensen's new adventure being put on an indefinate hold by The Adventure Company?

I can't comment on that game in particular, because I don't know anything about it, but there's usually a sound reason behind such a decision, be it financial or creative.

It's very expensive to make games, even relatively small ones. The staff needs a competitive salary, office space must be rented, computers must be leased or bought - and then there's the marketing, the PR, the distribution, printing, pressing, and the cost of getting a game on the shelves (which ain't free, believe me; there's an ongoing war for shelf space, and the deepest pockets usually win). All in all, it's very hard to develop and publish any kind of game - even a 'low-budget' one - for less than a million bucks, and for a triple-A multiplatform title, the price tag is usually four million dollars and upwards (the sky is not the limit). Embarking on any new development, therefore, is a balance between risk and reward, between creative dreams and financial realities. It's easy to criticise a publisher for cancelling a project - or "putting it on hold", which is what we always prefer to call it - but the fact is that, unless your company name spells 'E' and 'A', a single belly-flop can destroy you...and a lot of games do just that: flop. Therefore, a prudent publisher will scrutinise and evaluate a project at every step of the way, and no game-in-development is ever safe from the axe - unless it's a "sure thing", of course, but there aren't a lot of those.

So there's usually a good reason behind a cancellation. More often than not, it's because of a lack of progress, escalating expenses, or substandard quality; sometimes it's because of perceived or actual changes in the marketplace, or limited retailer interest; or the publisher may have run out of cash and needs to focus on fewer titles. It's the same in every creative industry. How many movies get axed before they're put into production? How many TV shows? A lot...but you don't necessarily hear about them. As games get more and more expensive, requiring bigger teams with highly experienced people, more games will also be put on the chopping block at an earlier stage - because mistakes will be costly, and flops may be fatal.  ¶ 15:38