It looks like the long, strange, development journey of This is Vegas is over, and not in a good way.  Citing a “cast iron source close to the project,” CVG is reporting that Warner Bros. has cancelled the project, resulting in one of the biggest wastes of money the gaming industry has ever seen.

This is Vegas was originally being published by Midway, but was bought up by Warner Bros. when Midway folded in 2009.  In June of this year, Warner Bros shuttered the game’s developer, Surreal Software, and split the remaining development duties between Snowblind and Monolith.  Now, after an estimated $50 million in utterly wasted development costs, This is Vegas is apparently canned.

CVG's source states that, "Midway spent in the region of $43 million up to the point when it was being sold to WB. Alan Patmore, who was [Surreal] studio boss, either left or was let go - but considering the resources and art created this is a lot of work down the drain."  He added, "It was moving along to a point where the title was on the schedule for release late last year - but still needed another eight months to a year to finish with a studio burn rate of $250,000 per month."

I remember seeing a playable demo of This is Vegas two years ago at E3.  What I saw didn’t blow me away, but it looked close to finished.  Somehow, despite the repeated delays and revolving door of developers and publishers, I always thought the game would eventually make it to stores.  Instead, it joins the likes of Starcraft Ghost, Dirty Harry, and Shenmue III on the sad list of games that might have been, but never were.

This is Vegas is slated for a release in Q3 of never.