I work in a very adjacent industry, you don’t announce shit early to build hype, you announce it early to shut media the fuck up about “is (business) doing anything?”, “is (business) struggling? (small side project) is not nearly as impressive as (major project released like less than a year ago)”, and to keep investors (who read those garbage articles) happy.

Neither the project teams nor the fans like this system, but the issue is either we feed the news cycle with speculation on the Next Big Thing™️, or let them beat us with a stick until something new comes out.