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[User 479360]

Christmas

 

[xealo]

People tend to buy things in a much greater extent closer to Christmas than any other time of the year (this phenomena goes beyond just games), they chase those sales from people whom buys video games for their kids as a present etc, that do not otherwise care about releases.

 

[CosmicQueso]

As per usual, you bring up lots of good points but the benchmarking data must strongly suggest that the holiday season is the way to go.

Chickens and eggs though. Do the majority of big titles launch at the end of the year because the sales are there? Or are the sales there because the majority of big titles launch at the end of the year?

Correlation vs causation and all that.

The biggest releases always seem to be saved for September onward. That said, two things to consider; 1) 2016 is a good example of year where we have had major AAA games being released throughout the year (so we should be able to see whether those spring release make it to the Top10 for the year) and 2) EA has not been shy about releasing big games in the spring, including Mass Effect 2 & 3, BFBC2 and BFHardline.

Yep, more of the big titles are getting released earlier in the year. And as more of those titles find success, more titles will join. It just takes time for the learning process to happen.

 

[Timeaisis]

The fall/holiday season sells as much as the entire rest of the year combined. That's the reason.

Sure, but is that just because everything sells better during the holiday season or just because more games come out during that season? Kind of a circular reasoning, I feel.

More games are sold during the holidays, therefore more are released during them.
OR
More games are released during the holidays, therefore more games are sold during them.

I'm sure the data speaks for itself, and obviously we don't have access to that data, but I still have to wonder why publishers are so skittish about the rest of the year when they are going up against such stiff competition during the holidays. Games, in the grand scheme of themes, are really not that expensive.

 

[Ogodei]

It mostly has to do with the industry's obsession with the hype machine that forces them to continue targeting the holiday season. This is when the most money is being spent on luxury products like games, and a game that came out in April may as well have come out in 1816, given the way this industry fetishizes newness.

Which is interesting given that it's really evergreen titles that dominate the market, if you watch the charts month to month. Guys like Minecraft and GTAV, or Mario Kart and Monster Hunter.

 

[KingV]

I like these threads where posters who don't see sales figures think the companies that do see the sales figures are idiots.

I have worked in marketing research for companies 3-4x the size of Activision in terms of revenue, that had access to better quality competitive data than is available for video games. They still made bonehead decisions with go-to-market plans for consumer products oftentimes.

Just because someone has access to data or works for a big company doesn't mean they are making the right decisions from that data, or are interpreting it correctly. Often, I have seen someone very senior in a company "go with their gut" and ignore what the data is telling them to do.

Maybe the case is different here, but I don't find appeal to authority a convincing argument.

 

[BeforeU]

Because thats when most people shop.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Unfortunately, until more history is built showing titles can have huge success around all release periods, this trend of a huge chunk of releases hitting Q4 will continue.

Have they not tried to at least map the success of Hollywood studios, who cater to largely the same demographic, and who have also successfully grown out of the 'only this (summer blockbuster) period is viable for big budget releases' mindset and made the entire calendar year viable for billion+ revenue spikes? Like, the data on how people spend in contradiction of long held beliefs about spending around the holidays is surely right there, are AAAA studios that risk-averse that they're willing to wait for 3+ more years before acknowledging that their assumptions about hitting arbitrary release windows are probably outdated and costing them money?

 

[CosmicQueso]

Have they not tried to at least map the success of Hollywood studios, who cater to largely the same demographic, and who have also successfully grown out of the 'only this (summer blockbuster) period is viable for big budget releases' mindset and made the entire calendar year viable for billion+ revenue spikes?

One of the big publishers that does exactly what you're saying is Warner, a studio that has access to that kind of data. More traditional game publishers have been slower to adopt the strategy, again relying more on benchmark performance.

 

[Rathorial]

Every AAA publisher wants their game to be the mass audience hit, and releasing near Christmas is just a period of more mass consumer spending.

I think for AAA action games that aren't already very established franchises...it is indeed a stupid period to release, because you will likely get swallowed up by other franchises. Mafia 3 and Titanfall 2 are pretty screwed, which sucks especially for Respawn because they made a great game, and I'm going to bet they didn't choose their date.

Gears of War 4 is a special use-case, in that it's an established franchise that will sell well enough, but like Forza is a tool for Microsoft to also move their hardware and ecosystem.

Other AAA games like Dishonored 2 I think are fine, because it's a slower paced more stealth-driven experience that will find an alternative crowd, and it got some real hype at E3. FF15 is a JRPG from a very venerated franchise, the curiosity of this long awaited game will be higher than the disappointment of the FF13 games, and it has a built-in audience of people that like that style/vibe of a game. Civ 6 hits a completely different audience of people than any of these other games, including people that barely even play games, and even people of older average age.

Be an already big game that commands an audience, or be a game that grabs a different audience than blockbuster action games.