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On Launching Major Videogames Outside Xmas
Thanks to the Hollywood Reporter for its column discussing major videogames originally due to launch in time for Christmas 2003, but which didn't quite make it. In the course of discussing these titles, which include James Bond 007: Everything Or Nothing, the article notes: "Game publishers, in general, recognize that the Christmas rush... is a huge marketing problem. This past Christmas, they say, there were too many good games coming out at the same time and quite a few didn't sell well." A spokesperson for Microsoft elaborates on this: "My prediction is we'll be spreading out the releases and shipping some in early September and others in January and February of 2005... But we can only do that with really great games that can stand on their own." Is weak sales when launching outside the holiday season a genuine problem, or just a self-perpetuating myth?
Come on, people. It seems to me that every Christmas a certain number of games is going to be sold. It doesn't matter if those games are less than a month old! Kid wants game, parents buy game. I'm not saying taking a flagship-type title and releasing it Dec. 1 is a bad idea, not at all. But releasing a huge mash of games? Mightn't it be better to just have a couple great new ones, backed up by similiarly solid, but slightly older titles?
Much more than that, I hate having to wait for Xmas for half the games I want to come out. I miss out on games that way. I can only get a few out of the cluster. And I'm not always likely to go back and catch the remains later. I would probably buy more games, overall, if more companies had more even release schedules.
Once there comes about a major, significant videogame award event, watch for the "Oscar effect": they'll still be released around Xmas.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm still wondering when game companies will realize that the video game market is more like the movie industry than the toy industry. With movies they have the Christmas and the Summer season but they also release big movies throughout the year especially around holidays. It would be really nice if video game companies did this because as much as I might want all the latest games I can't afford them all at the same time and if I don't pick it up while it's fresh in my mind I tend to forget about it.
I think the Xmas myth is an excuse by game makers to support crappy titles. I'm sure it's much easier to sell garbage in the middle of a rush when clueless relatives will buy anything based on packaging.
I personally buy games when I have the money based on an educated decision making process.
For some games - Gran Tourismo, GTA, Final Fantasy, etc - it doesn't matter when you release, it's going to do well.
:)
For others it makes sense to launch either at Christmas (for obvious reasons), or in May when kids are getting out of school and suddenly aren't under the strict yolk of parental control. So traditionally you see games come out at those two times.
The game market is bigger now, and any given game can absolutely get lost in the shuffle. Maybe spreading the releases is a good idea. I'm not a video game marketing expert
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
The game has to be good or no dice.
I'll buy HL2, Doom3, DNF (if it ever comes out) and some other titles regardless of when they come out. I think the kids market is where the money is during x-mass.
I say, If a game can't stand on its own is it worth playing?
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Just like in the summer movie season, a few excellent games seem to just get lost in the Christmas rush. See: Beyond Good and Evil.
seems to me that game companies had a much *better* chance this xmas than previous ones. this christmas, we had no Half-Life 2, no Doom, no new Zelda, no new Mario, no Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, no Fable, no Halo 2. this season there was a *lack* of premier titles of the kind that are likely to drown out the smaller ones. my guess is that other game companies, expecting huge games like Half-Life 2 and Doom to make their ship dates, scaled back their marketing in anticipation of being overlooked. big mistake. 2004 is going to be a far more competitive year than xmas 2003 would ever be considered.
I am a video game programmer, and have been in the industry for many years. Here's what I've experienced. The reason why Christmas is a big season is that games won't sit on the shelf for very long. The retailers quickly move games off the shelf to make room for new games. Since titles sell more units around Christmas, it makes sense to release them then. If I have a game that I release in June, chances are it won't sell nearly as well as it would around Christmas. And chances are, even if it is a good game, it won't be stocked by most retailers by the time Christmas rolls around. This is *especially* true of the really big retailers, for example WalMart and Toys 'r Us. On the other hand, certain titles sell well at different times of the year. Sports titles tend to sell well during the first half of whatever the sports season is, and poorly after that (comparitively speaking). Everyone here of course mentions games they would buy games no matter what the time of year is, but all the examples I've seen cited are existing franchises. Most game companies will try and release their unknown titles and/or new franchises during the Christmas holiday, and have their known titles release at other times of the year to fill the void. When I say unknown titles, I mean unknown, and not bad. I know plenty of games that were very good in my opinion, and just didn't sell well, usually because of poor marketing support or releasing at an awkward time.
I am sorry but if the game I want is out in June. This game is coming home with me the day it gets released. It's senseless waiting six months just cause it fits the tradition.
If I am hungry at 10pm, I shouldn't have to wait till next morning's breakfast. There are way too many people with shopping habits like this. That's why all the damn game companies gear around the holidays.
name one? i can name three: star wars KOTOR prince of persia sands of time call of duty
The industry really needs a good way to keep consumers up to date about titles that are released and a way to test them out. Magazines that consist of nothing but demo CD's, for example, or timed kiosks at stores. Sure, they'd be swamped all of the time, but that's what kiosks are for.
When a new movie is released, there is an entire secondary industry around promoting it's theatre release, a cheap theater release, it sees more hype at rental stores, and finally the television premier nets more airtime. With videogames it is all or nothing, with a store shelf release that will see 1/2 of the profits in the first two months, ultimately culminating in... A store shelf release. The only people telling anyone about a game are the magazines and websites that people who are interested can go to. When was the last time you went to a website to hear hype about LOTR?
We need to get the industry to the point where John Tesh on E! gushing about Half Life 2's amazing graphics and solid storyline. Maybe then the quirky little games can have their spotlight... and their elongated shelf life.
The ______ Agenda
I don't think superstition is really the root of the problem here. I think its an issue of trust and communications between the developers and their marketing department. Old traditional marketing research dictates that "Christmas Release = More Sales" no matter what market (unless you work in something like the swimsuit industry). However, this is not true in the case of video games. With successful marketing a game like Neverwinter Nights, Starcraft, or Half-Life could all sell well even if they weren't release near Christmas season.
I chose these three games as examples because : Neverwinter Nights was released in June, pretty much as far away as Christmas as you can get but was insanely marketed for its modding systems. Starcraft was not an existing franchise and was a deviation from Warcraft 2's, two side system as well as a change in "universes" and was pushed by Blizzard. And Half-Life was developed by a company (Valve) no one had ever heard of prior to its release but was pumped with talk (relatively) smart AI and implementation of a strong storyline.
It's kind of sad, yet good for us consumers, that what has happened this Xmas is stores stocked up on good games, and now they are selling off the over-stock dirt cheap.
Consider this: "Beyond Good & Evil" has received many favorable reviews. It IS a good game. And though it was released in November 2003, you can pick it up now for under $20. An amazing deal.
Was the lack of mid-summer releases. Not as huge a deal now that I'm out of school, but it always seemed that the big titles I wanted to play would release in the late Sept-Nov window so as to be peaking around X-Mas. Good concept for boosting sales, I suppose, except for the minor problem where that's when school starts, ergo when my time for playing games drops off. Did it prevent me from getting my first choice game (e.g. the newest Final Fantasy)? Never. Did it mean that I didn't ever get to my third choice game (or sometimes even my second) because all my limited playing time was going into the one I bought first? Almost every year. The mid-summer dead time worked out great for the local Blockbuster, but had one of the games I actually wanted released during that window, they would have gotten my money instead.
Also released is "Punctuation:The Revenge".
But seriously, Prince of Persia? Another typical example of a godawful console port for PC. You can't even control the camera angles! Presumably the developer controls the angles to optimise the framerates for the weak console architecture. The user interface was also awful. This is really substandard for a PC game. I don't believe you can call a half-arsed console port a quality game.
And yet look at those titles that got lost like Beyond Good & Evil that still got lost in the shuffle and didn't sell until companies started clearing them out at 10 bucks a pop. Granted, that's when I bought it, though had I had fifty bucks when it came out, I would have bought it.
From the inside of a game store, you get to hear bits of insider info on why games arent released this time of year. The programmer said it right, there just isnt enough shelf space to house all the games. We run out of titles and after that, we sometimes dont see them again. Christmas is a big selling season for us, our shelves were packed with new games and we sold out of the majority of the titles released around that time.
I can see them holding off Fable, Halo 2, and Half Life just because the Christmas season is when people do most of thier retail shopping. Our store went from making tens of thousands weekly around Christmas, to making less than a thousand a day after. Some days we havent even hit 500.
I think it also looks good on the books to end the fiscal year with a bang, than just business as usual. Could the retail market be responsible for the hold off and delays? Maybe.
I own the PS2 version, and the camera is totally controllable through the use of the second joystick. You can also switch to a distance perspective and first person perspective using the L2 and the R2 buttons.
Dude, try moving the mouse left and right - ooo look! the camera angle moves! Prince of Persia is a *fantastic* conversion - one of the few to do it right IMHO - along with Star Wars: KOTOR and GTA3: Vice City Grandparent is right - those three games rocked *hard* this Christmas andI'll add another to the list: Broken Sword 3 - The Sleeping Dragon
Is weak sales when launching outside the holiday season a genuine problem, or just a self-perpetuating myth?
It can't be a self-perpetuating myth. It would self-perpetuate if no-one released games outside the holiday season, but then you'd get ZERO sales not WEAK sales. Weak sales can only be caused by actually releasing a product and seeing it flop.
If a six-month spread is better than a one-month spread, their ultimate goal should be a twelve-month spread.
However, I doubt higher sales is a myth. Christmas time is the time when some who never go into video games stores and departments actually go in to buy a game. The gamer will take his games when they're ready. Add to that that post Christmast thru January is the only time where the shelves are half-bare, and they carried twice the stock as usual after Thanksgiving.
I'm against releasing games on a hard deadline. Games rushed like DDR Ultramix for XBox are buggy and rife with errors. On the other hand, if a game is completely done in June, why should it come out in December? The hard deadline of Christmas pushes bad games out early and good games out late--on possibly behind-the-times.
Since the retail world is wrapped around Christmas in the USA, everything else we don't think about is probably wrapped on the same schedule: PS2 DVD boxes, game systems, chips, memory cards, DVD components, game controllers, televisions, DVD drives, RAM chips, and so on. Because of the joys of mass production, it must be cheaper to manufacture and sell these components in August-October.
So to change the business model, we have to first change the way everybody buys things. I can tell that's what the stores want, too. An evenly distributed budget is much easier to control.