Ah, the holiday season.
Time for laughter, cheer, family gatherings...oh yeah, and a hype blitz followed immediately by a tsunami of game releases.
Every year, without fail, the same thing. The 8-or-so weeks leading up to year's end are flooded with big name releases. Week after week, more and more are dumped on the (mostly) unsuspecting public and cause those of us aware of the industry to sigh deeply as we trudge back to Gamestop yet again and whip out our credit card for the 7th time in the last 7 weeks. The saddest part of all this? The majority of us (hardcore of the hardcore excluded) won't get around to seriously playing any of these for WEEKS - if at all.
I write this knowing full well that my reservation for Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is waiting for me a half-mile down the road at GameStop, but I have no intention of picking it up.
No, sir.
I'm currently hammering away at Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on DS, Disgaea3, LittleBigPlanet, and Valkyria Chronicles on PS3, Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 on Wii, and Rock Band 2 on 360. I have my hands quite full and have no reason to buy another game at the moment. Oh - I almost forgot - Banjo Kazooie on XBLA - the reason for my Nuts and Bolts pre-order in the first place.
I think, for the first time in history, marketers are finally beginning to figure this out. Although this season is pretty jam-packed, it isn't nearly as bad as the last few years (including the console launches). A lot of high-profile games were released in the spring and summer months of this year - a welcome change. MGS4, for example. And this year seems to be the same thing - games are being delayed to Q1 and Q2 (SFIV, Resident Evil 5) to add polish and improve quality. No longer is shipping in Q1-Q3 instead of Q4 a retail death sentence. There are still publishers who believe that shipping in Q4 must be done at all costs, even if it means sacrificing features or quality to do so (and I will be writing an article on one such company soon), but their numbers are dwindling.
That being said, there are still plenty of software titles being booted out the door months and months before completion in order to take advantage of the increased likelihood of sales.
I find this trend interesting for a couple of reasons... first of all, given the state of the economy, shipping in Q4 does not, in fact, guarantee a sales boost. Secondly, unless you're a well known brand (for a kiddy game) or a GOOD game (for a hardcore game), your chances of getting lost in the tidal wave of releases is better than your chances at becoming a bestseller. Hardcore gamers listen to reviews (most of the time), so if you've been blowing smoke up people's asses with a strategically clever marketing campaign only to turn around and sell them a miserable pile of crap, people will know about it. Look at Kane and Lynch - or Assassin's Creed (sorry Jade...even your cute Canadian accent and "girl next door obtainable" hotness couldn't save that pile of dog doodoo you call a game). Reviews matter. Hype does too - but less so. The worse the economy gets, the more people will actually begin paying attention to whether a game is worthy of their hard-earned money (a trend that, sadly, all movie-licensed or kids titles seem blissfully exempt from).
I'd like to take this time to launch into a tirade about Sega deciding to domestically release Sonic Unleashed for 360 and PS3 in a few weeks despite a delay in Japan over "quality concerns". I smell a Sonic 2006-style turd coming out of Sonic Team, and it sure reeks. I have it queued up on Gamefly, and will be writing about my impressions when it launches. Hopefully this game, at least, won't have furry-on-princess makeout sessions. That alone would be an improvement.
3 comments:
I agree that the economy makes it harder to argue for shovelware, but I'd argue that gamer mindsets have been seeing B or C-grade games as increasingly unacceptable since a certain "A" game got a B+. That perception makes more deceptive marketing more necessary to ensure a company can make money in a fiscal quarter.
In short, gamers became a problem to selling video games.
I must also applaud you for not pre-ordering the new Sonic game but instead queuing it up: There was a time when you'd be mad and annoyed you weren't getting your chili-dog-lovin furry.
And if your first thought when seeing my chili-dog comment was "hey, he only liked that in the bad animated series" ...
Well then I rest my case.
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