The title of this thread is a little ambiguous, since obviously the gaming industry is constantly evolving and getting better at what it does. However, one thing in particular has recently caught my eye. 5-10 years ago, games would often go into development and depending on the game, have a massive promotional campaign behind it to generate higher sales numbers. For a time, it seemed like this type of campaign was a requirement and soon we got lots of games with large PR that released to very poor critical reception (Daikatana anyone?). Often times these games would be stuck in development for years and years after their announcement and it seemed those extra years barely served any purpose. However it seems to me that this trend is changing. Two major instances of this I can think of recently are Splinter Cell: Conviction and the soon to be released Alan Wake. Both games were announced very early and seemed like they were stuck in development 'hell' forever. Now that they're here we are seeing good to very good reviews of these games. Do you think the industry has become aware to when a game should be axed and when it should get that multi-million dollar campaign? Of course there are exceptions to this, Duke Nukem Forever being the fly in the soup since it was in development hell forever only to be axed. Then there are critical successes that seem to have little to no PR campaign. What are your thoughts on the state of the industry and the strength of the games behind the PR campaigns?