I don't mind developers announcing games many years before release (in fact I enjoy the transparency it brings) - so long as they're honest about how long it will take for them to finish it. Some films are announced nearly decades in advance, but nobody really cares because the marketing only ramps up near the end of production, near the finish line. I'm perfectly fine with developers being transparent about what they're working on (they're a games company, not the bloody FBI), but if the game is still in early production, be honest about that. I thought it was cute when Amanita Design first announced Samorost 3 with a little teaser trailer, that said "coming (not very) soon" at the end.

Personally I don't think making the development of a huge AAA game top secret for many years is really very good for the employees that work on it, if I'm honest. Again, they work at a games company, not a intelligence organisation or some other super top secret thing. Being unable to even mention the name of the thing you're working on, or even mention that you're working on anything at all, for quite a few years, just sounds suffocating to me. Remember that games companies aren't these monolithic organisations that spew out a product every few years then go quiet, they're a collection of people who work tirelessly behind the scenes.

Unfortunately I feel that the secrecy that companies like Rockstar employ has only led to both companies and fans being more detached from each other, and led to less understanding of the process that goes into making games. The entire company is dehumanised because we never hear about the stories that occurred during development, we never really hear about the directors, artists, writers and programmers that made these games a reality. In the end, Rockstar didn't make these games - the team of people that works within Rockstar did.

I kinda wish that more companies had the same amount of transparency that Double Fine has - making little documentaries and retrospectives over their games, talking about the problems that occurred rather then sugarcoating the whole game dev process, making small video updates on how the game is going in a way that isn't strictly speaking marketing, etc.