Just some of the faces you won’t see this Christmas. (Image courtesy of Xcite79.1up.com)
With Ubisoft’s announcement of bumping four titles to next year and possibly beyond, the 2009 holiday season is slowly thinning out. And while some raving idiots are convinced these are the end times, I, for one, am thrilled as fuck.
Make no mistake, it sucks to have a growing list of highly anticipated, triple-A titles delayed to next year, but ask yourselves:
-How many of you have games you haven’t even unwrapped yet?
-How many of those games are from last holiday alone?
-How many of you are looking to save some money in these harsh economic times?
If you didn’t raise your hand, then you’re probably a millionaire with too much time on your hands, and the rest of us hate your guts. If, however, you are playing catch-up with Fable II or Fallout 3 because your wallet is pleading for mercy, then you may realize that too many games is, in this case at least, a problem that’s been steadily building for quite some time.
So to ease the pressure, developers are pushing some of their triple-A titles to 2010. Does this really resolve the situation? Seemingly, yes, but now we have an incredibly front-loaded Q1. We’ve simply extended the holiday shopping season an extra three months. Who has money to blow after December with bills lurking around the corner? Nobody.
Except those damn millionaires. I hope they burn in hell.
And some more faces you won’t see for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. (Image courtesy of Xcite79.1up.com)
So what’s a real working solution? I suggest a release calendar that evenly distributes a publisher’s titles throughout the year and lessens the chance of games cannibalizing each others’ sales.
I’m aware that this is a huge paradigm shift for many companies. Developers/publishers will argue that the holiday season is when they make their biggest sales. I’m not going to argue with that, but it doesn’t have to be the only time of the year to release an awesome game.
What about right now? In this wasteland between E3 and the annual Madden release with nothing but crappy movie license tie-ins, games like InFamous, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, and Red Faction: Guerilla are enjoying healthy sales. And with relatively no competition, I predict Batman: Arkham Asylum will see similar returns in August.
It’s a shame that it took this long and a severe recession for publishers to see that the holidays are too crowded and potentially harmful to their bottom line, no matter how good their games may be. Perhaps this announcement is the stimulus for a revised release schedule that will keep us steadily stocked with quality games throughout the year and a few extra bucks in our pockets.
And for those of you who are worried that there’ll be nothing but coal in your stockings this Christmas, remember that we’ve got a new Halo prequel, another GTA4 expansion, scores of zombies to blow away, and Jack Black’s video game debut to look forward to (or at least for now).
Don’t worry, kids, this guy will be here soon enough (Image courtesy of videogamer.today.com) It’ll be like Sophie’s choice. Only with no Nazis. And your children are video games. How much fun will that be?
EDIT: Capcom’s Dark Void has now joined the list. Will this madness ever end?