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The Christmas Rush In The Games Industry
Gamasutra has a piece offering up responses to their query regarding whether the Christmas rush helps or hurts the industry. From the article: " I think it benefits no one. Developers lose out because their hard work is fighting for a slice of the publishers' limited market resource. Publishers lose out because marketing will cost more in order to make an impact, and consumers lose because they'll miss out on some truly good games just because they either can't afford to buy them all at release, so they don't get bought at all, or they just won't have time to play all the games they do buy properly. -Sean Scaplehorn, IdeaWorks 3D Ltd "
There are three primary ways of looking at this...
/.ers like it or not, more that 75% of all video game sales happen in the fourth quarter. Not because publishers want to pay more at Christmas for ads or placement, or because marketers prefer intense, ridiculous competition, but because this is one Ma and Pa and Grandma and Grandpa buy games for Junior or when Junior gets his gift cards and new hardware.
First is the "release a title when it's done" strategy... which is absolutely perfect for a title with a lot of hype and latent consumer demand. Big AAA titles like Halo and Doom3 are the perfect examples here. The release of the title is in and of itself an event which drives people to the stores. So yes, putting these types of games out when they're ready is a perfect strategy.
Second is the "it's not Christmas, but it's the right time of year" strategy... which is perfect for sports titles like Madden. Again, this drives people to the stores.
Finally, is the "follow shopping patterns" strategy. Whether
But no, go ahead and say it's because of Greed and The Man trying to get over. Please...