Analysts Predict Tough Christmas For Game Publishers

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article regarding predictions of a tough 2004 holiday season for all videogame publishers, as an analyst report from Banc of America Securities claims "competition in the games market will be much more intense than last year", and argues that "some games will just not receive any shelf space from retailers, and initial shipments of titles will be very low, even by historical standards." The report goes on to highlight some non-specific specifics: "We have very low expectations for games of other developers with less-known brands... including Acclaim, Midway (except Mortal Kombat), Atari, Eidos, Vivendi (apart from Half-Life 2, if it is released) and even Microsoft (apart from Halo 2)... Expect many disasters this holiday." Is there really a reason for game creators to worry about what sales Santa will bring them?

Comments

Publish games during the summer season!

[Senator Bozo]

Hollywood, for example, has its big summer season when all of the blockbusters are released nearly back to back. In fact, releases are even scheduled around dates set by competing films.

So why don't video game publishers try to capitalize on the summer months, when the market isn't flooded with competitors and people seem eager to spend money on entertainment?

E.g.: Blizzard publish Warcraft III on July 3rd, 2002 and WC3: TFT on July 1st, 2003, and each sold several million copies within weeks of their respective release date.

Re:Publish games during the summer season!

[Dark Nexus]

When you think about it, most younger gamers get their games as gifts, generally for birthdays and christmas. So for that target audience, christmas is the right time for most releases.

My guess is that publishers are still stuck on that "games are for kids" thought when it comes to release dates, even if they're over that for content. For any target audience that buys their own games, spread the releases around a bit! Some more in the summer, some around late February or early March for that late winter drag, a few in mid or late september, for those who have grown tired of their purchases from early June...

Re:Publish games during the summer season!

[dammitallgoodnamesgo]

I had heard that the idea was that publishers thought no people would ever want to stay in playing games during the summer, they'd all be out in the sunshine. We know how wrong that is, but it's possible they've not learned yet.

Meaning of Christmas

[LifesizeKenDoll]

I think we're forgetting the real meaning of Christmas - The birth of Santa

Re:Rhetorical or redundant?

[gl4ss]

well, the way they explain it is that: ***"The report, authored by analysts Gary L Cooper, Eric K Brown and John P Newell, details key clashes between major titles in almost every genre - and presents a convincing argument for the claim that "apart from The Sims 2.0, we do not consider any game this holiday out of harm's way of the competition.""***

so it should be a sweet season for the _gamer_, the reason why it would be hard for the gamemaker is that CRAP TITLES WON'T SELLL. though, it's all about the marketing anyways and god knows how the hell these guys can even predict what games will actually be on sale durin the xmas shopping season.

On a related note

[Slyght]

Is it just me, or has anybody been noticing that everything's just been going bad for developers nowadays? I mean, it seems like every other day you go on Slashdot or Gamespot and there's an article about a development studio getting shutdown, or a publisher laying workers off, or a company's earnings report lower than last year, etc. People always talk about the video game being a growing industry, but all it seems to be is shrinking. This is very discouraging to somebody such as myself who is in the game development industry, because it feels like this industry is going to collapse any second.