I’ve got a great letter here from a developer. I’m not going to say where he works but you’ve probably played his games.
Hi Gabe,
Most of us in the industry are as puzzled about these release schedules as you are. Why would you release games in such a way as to get them buried under a landslide of other great games? From a money-making standpoint, this makes about as much sense as releasing the pilot of a new TV series during the SuperBowl. No TV producer in their right mind would ever do that. However, this happens every year in our industry and there's really only one reason I can think of. It's the same reason so many sequels get made for games -- people like to play it safe. And it drives most of us in the trenches mad.
Now I know what you're thinking "What? How is 'getting your title buried in a shit heap of other games so that it doesn't sell nearly as well as it could have' playing it safe?" I have a theory on this that I call "The Christmas Decoration Phenomenon." As near as I can tell, there are legions of trolls that sit in marketing offices all day crunching numbers. They are really sensitive to patterns, even ones that the normal human eye is incapable of seeing. It would seem that, at some point a few years back, some clever marketing troll said to himself "hmm... a lot of games sell around Christmas, because people go and buy toys for kids at Christmas. I know! If we sell our game at Christmas, we'll make tons of money!" And it worked. For years, it seemed that the maxim was "lets push this game and get it out the door at Christmas." And, like the decorations at department stores, the definition of "Christmas Time" keeps getting pushed back sooner and sooner and lasting longer and longer. Now, "The Holiday Season" begins in September and ends in January.
Well this year, I think what happened is that everyone did as they normally did -- scheduled for Christmas -- oblivious to the fact that everyone else was doing the same damn thing, and all of a sudden there's a crisis. "Oh shit, you mean GTA4, Half-Life 2, Metroid Prime 2, Halo 2, AND OurGameX are coming out in the same week? Crap! How did this happen? Lets shuffle around some deadlines... release a week later.. a week earlier.. a month earlier... and so forth."
It really just comes down to some crappy planning based on the stagnangy of marketing philosophies. Releasing during the holidays is "safe"... even though tons of other games are coming out... I dont know if you can hear it, but my eyes are rolling back in my head right now.
At any rate, I think there is some light at the end of the tunnel. From rumblings that I hear, you'll probably start to see more games released mid-year than before to avoid just this sort of thing. Nintendo has been doing this for a long time. They'll step out the release of their awesome first party titles throughout the year to avoid a pile-up at Christmas... like intelligent people.
That's just my theory, though. I'm sure someone involved in marketing would be able to help you out much better than I could.
~ Dodger
I'll post more good ones if I get them.
-Gabe out
