Letter From the Producer IX.

[Jennestia]

So because one game did that, it's the standard?

All game development takes a long time, it's been a standard since the 70s. The time varies but as technology grew so did development time. Most games these days take 1.5-5 years to produce, MMORPG wise, updates takes months to years to produce and you generally hear about it when it's about to be released.