A Delayed Game Is Eventually Good, But a Bad Game Is Bad Forever

Submission 15,682

Part of a series on Shigeru Miyamoto. [View Related Entries]

About

A Delayed Game Is Eventually Good, a Bad Game Is Bad Forever is a quote commonly attributed to Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. The quote has often been used to comment on various video games being delayed, with the frequency of use eventually resulting in it becoming a subject of parodies and shitposts online.

Origin

While the quote "a delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever" is commonly attributed to Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, its exact origin is unknown. The earliest recorded instance of the quote, "A late game is only late until it ships. A bad game is bad for the rest of your life," comes from issue 111 of GamePro magazine, released December 1st, 1997,^[11] about Sony's shooter Blasto, where the quote was described as an "industry catch phrase".^[1]

An article about The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of TIme in the June 1998 issue of Next Generation says that Nintendo lives by the mantra "A late game is only late until it ships. A bad game is bad forever," with the quote described as "posted on the wall at a development house."^[1]

The quote started to be commonly attributed to Shigeru Miyamoto in early 2002. In June 2002, the quote was listed as one of Miyamoto's on the fan website Myamoto Shrine.^[2] An October 2003 Google forum discussion attributed the quote to Miyamoto.^[3] On April 27th, 2012, The Guardian^[4] used the quote in an article about Miyamoto, also using it in the headline.

On March 16th, 2012, Redditor^[5] DecadenceNight created an image macro based on the quote which received over 1,500 upvotes in the /r/gaming subreddit and was widely circulated online through the 2010s (shown below).

Spread

On September 9th, 2015, Redditor DarkProzzak reposted the macro in /r/gaming,^[6] with the post gaining over 10,200 upvotes in six months.

On August 18th, 2018, Twitter^[7] user @Doctor_Cupcakes made the earliest found humorous edit of the macro, recaptioning it, "but a Spyro game is forever bad." The post gained over 370 retweets and 1,800 likes in four years (shown below).

More humorous edits of the image were posted in 2019. For example, on January 25th, Twitter^[8] user @ArloStuff made a meme about Metroid Prime 4 getting delayed, with the post gaining over 740 retweets and 4,200 likes in three years (shown below, left). On March 14th, 2019, Facebook^[9] user Jonathan Dogey posted another edit that gained over 110 reactions and 19 shares in the same period (authorship unconfirmed; shown below, right).

The image macro and memes based on it saw an increase in use in the months surrounding the release of the 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077. On October 27th, 2020, Twitter^[10] user @imsaltYT posted a meme that received over 100 retweets and 960 likes in two years (shown below, left). On March 28th, 2021, Redditor thelastsandwich posted a shitpost that gained over 3,600 upvotes in /r/cyberpunkgame in one year (shown below, right).

The macro remained a prominent source for edits in the following years, seeing periods of increased use when anticipated games got delayed.