Remember what games you were running down in 2002? Yes, no? Well, that’s when the game Kien was supposed to be released. Hey, you can buy it now for $59.99 here — and no, this isn’t a recommendation — https://incube8games.com/products/kien-gba
15 years to release Duke Nukem Forever is an eternity, but Kien, just released for the Game Boy Advance (GBA), took 7 years longer.
Kien currently holds the record for the most-delayed video game in history – 22 years eclipses the 15-year journey of the infamous Duke Nukem Forever, a shooter that was delayed for so long that it became a meme. After all this time, people can now actually buy Kien, on a Game Boy Advance cartridge.
Kien, the most-delayed video game in history, released after 22 years | Games | The Guardian
Not sure holding the record for the “most-delayed video game in history” is any kind of badge of honor any year, much less in 2024, but hey, they finally got it out there and here’s what it looks like:
The biggest problem with Kien is the elephant in the room not being talked about.
The release price.
It’s cool that somebody is finally releasing this game and in physical format as originally intended. The packaging looks solid, but however we’ve landed on new game releases at $59.99 has to be re-evaluated. Seriously, a “new” GBA game that isn’t from Nintendo or, really, anybody we’ve heard of, in 2024 costing $60?
You might have seen articles about this game all over the place, PGM is definitely not trying to join the noise with this article, but the question nobody else asked in any of these articles I read was: why does this game cost $60?
In 2002, many GBA games cost $30 or less, and some noteworthy ones $40-$45. With inflation, yeah, maybe that’s closer to $60 in 2024 money, but wouldn’t it have been even more cool to release Kien at the price it would have cost in 2002 when it was supposed to be released instead of the unnecessarily expensive $60 in 2024? The competition for this game is ridiculous today. Kien might find a limited audience among diehard current GBA fans, but this isn’t going to sell nearly as well as it would at half the price.
Good luck, Kien. We didn’t miss ya, we don’t know you, and you’ll almost certainly find your way into gaming obscurity … until some other game beats your hall of shame record with 25 or 30 years to release. Hopefully that game’s pricing will be better.