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Analysis: Is Delay Publishers’ New Marketing Strategy?
by Paul Hyman
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November 10, 2009
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[With publishers pushing former 'Holiday 2009' games like Bayonetta and BioShock 2 into 2010, Gamasutra examines the shifts, looking at whether this potential "new trend" is an economic stopgap or a long-term change.]
Anyone recall a time when the video games industry wasn't focused almost entirely on year-end sales? To take advantage of the holiday gift-giving season, the majority of games have always been released in the October to November time frame, almost as if there weren't 12 months in the year.
But this year, the economic slump has given birth to a new marketing strategy -- delaying some releases until first quarter and beyond. This, some believe, will enable gamers with limited funds to find desirable titles not only during the holiday season but into the new year as well.
At least, that's what analysts are saying; publishers, meanwhile, aren't saying much. Not one publisher contacted for this story was willing to talk on the record -- not Ubisoft, not Sega, not Activision Blizzard, not 2K, all of them with plans to delay titles into 2010.
What They Say
In a previously-released statement, Sega West president and COO Mike Hayes explained why the upcoming PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 action title Bayonetta won't make its Fall 2009 release window in North America and is, instead, slated for January 2010.
"As a result of market analysis," he said, "we have made a publishing decision that January 2010 is the optimum release time in the Western markets to maximize this exciting new title's potential."
At Take-Two, chairman Strauss Zelnick earlier released a statement that it was delaying the North American launch of BioShock 2 from November 3 into the company's fiscal 2010 -- which begins November 1 -- citing unexpectedly challenging retail environments and "to provide additional development time. We concluded that [the move] was the right decision for the product." Take-Two's Mafia II is reportedly due in the first half of calendar year 2010, also a delay for that title.
Similarly, Activision Blizzard has bumped the release date of Raven's Singularity back to March, 2010 "in order to establish the new cutting-edge action IP as a 'must-have' title … and clear the way for [Activision's other shooter] Modern Warfare 2 to dominate this holiday season," according to a corporate statement.
And asked to explain why Ubisoft was moving the release of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction from its holiday lineup to February 23, a spokesperson said, "We've said all we're going to say on the subject."
But back in August, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello described the scenario that may have influenced other publishers to delay some of their releases: "One of the learnings we had from FY09," he said, "was that we bunched up too much into the Q3 quarter [October-December]. Where some of our titles crowded out the competition, they were crowded out by other EA titles."
And, he added, EA put together a plan "that is designed to take advantage of the fact that there are 12 months in a year, and we think we can actually do better with our key titles by spacing them out."
What It Means
Indeed, amid the economic downturn and what some publishing execs cite as continuing retail conservatism on initial sell-in volume, it's possible other publishers may buck the trend toward seasonal rush and move their higher-profile, costly releases into less crowded release windows in the hopes of selling more units.
Are we seeing the beginning of a long-term trend -- or just a short-term stop-gap measure until the economy picks up? "I do think this is a new trend," says Matt Matthews, Gamasutra contributor and NPD analyst, "but I'm not surprised there aren't more people talking about it. Delaying a game -- for whatever reason -- has always been considered something negative … even when it's not."
Matthews subscribes to the scenario that with so many games being released in the same short period of time -- especially with the abundance of new Wii games which, he says, has overcrowded that platform -- publishers suspect that gamers, with their limited time and money, aren't going to buy every game they want.
"It's possible that publishers are looking at the must-buys -- like the new Call Of Duty, the new Halo, and, of course, this year's Madden -- and are predicting that they will suck up so much of the available money that the others ought to be put on the back burner for a while."
"Under different economic circumstances, gamers might buy every title they want within the space of two months, but not this year; I don't think the general population is prepared to do that at this time," the analyst theorizes. "I don't remember the last time the industry got pinched this badly by a recession."
Past Trends
Matthews recalls that in 2005, 2006, and 2008, the dollars spent on console and handheld software were 55 percent in the first three calendar quarters followed by a 45 percent splurge in spending in the fourth quarter.
But then, he says, "a bunch of titles made a ton of money in the first three quarters of 2008 and sales jumped to over $6 billion compared to $4.5 billion in the year-earlier first three quarters. That's a tremendous jump -- 33 percent. But when you compare the fourth quarter of 2008 to the year-earlier fourth quarter, the increase is only 16 percent."
"What that says to me is that the pinch from the recession started even before 2008 was over," he continues. "Some people didn't expect the industry to be affected by the recession, but when people are unemployed, they can't purchase expensive video games."
Mathews suggests that, at some point, publishers looked at the numbers and realized they'd be far better off if they pushed back some game titles. "Consider the fact that this generation of console games is far more expensive to produce than the last one," he explains. "The games that are coming out now are ones that were green-lighted 18-24 months ago … and those investments are now coming due."
"If a company is looking at its investment and has a choice of getting a decent return at Christmas or waiting a few months and getting a much better return in a less-crowded field -- perhaps in a somewhat more positive economic environment this spring -- I think they'd rather do the latter."
But won't delaying a year-end game glut until the spring just delay the glut a few months? Possibly, says Matthews, but he believes publishers may soon come to the realization that it would be to their benefit -- and to the consumers' -- if they targeted various times throughout the year to release their games.
"It used to be that nothing came out during the summer, and I think that needs to change," he says. "Publishers will have to figure out ways to make money in non-traditional months. You'll recall that Microsoft released Halo 3 in September 2007 and did very, very well. If a game is good enough, it shouldn't matter when it comes out."
Continues Matthews: "In my mind, Activision could promote, say, July as Call of Duty month. Or use some other big franchise as a tent pole to hold up a different month. And then they might re-release it at Christmas as 'the hit that rocked the summer' and get a second bite of the sales apple."
However, once the recession is a thing of the past, will marketers return to tried-and-true strategies with Christmas as their main focus?
Matthews hopes that won't happen but he suspects it will. "Publishers may just slide through 2010 and then say, 'Well, we're glad we got through that' and return to old habits. It would be better for the industry if that didn't happen, but there are some habits that are just extremely hard to break."
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Gamers HATE glitches(bugs), and I think they would wait knowing the release is pretty solid.
The question of course is, can a company be feasible and profitable doing this?
Being in the software industry for over 10 years now, I can't stand company's who release quickly and release buggy code. Everyone has done it.
Fiorentino I, Agreed, I'm good for a delay as long as it's fixing the game further, but this has nothing to do with such a need...it's an excuse to avoid telling the consumer, yea we want more gold lining our pockets so you have to wait. We hate hearing that our game creators are money grubbing even if we really know deepdown that it's the whole point.
IMO way too many great games get overshadowed with a holiday release. I think the whole attitude needs to change.
I agree with Fiorentino that bugs are incredibly annoying in (esp. console) games, and think that with publishers starting to not have the Christmas window be the hard and fast release target, it will be easier for developers to negotiate for more time to fix issues.
Besides, I find it somewhat strange that a company would want to release a game for Christmas, when nobody is going to wait till then to play it anyway (like CoD:MW2 for example, I am not going to wait a month to play it). Of course there are exceptions, but most people will want to play the game right away, so in that sense releasing it for a holiday is irrelevant.
Also, pushing all these games into the first quarter of 2010 could just create the same problem as last christmas (too many good games released at the same time). I agree with Matthews when he says that there is no reason why 'blockbuster' games shouldn't be released in the summer. Last summer practically nothing game out, and people wonder why sales were down.
Like release Halo, CoD, Doom, Half-Life, MoH all the time time, and complain that FPS is not selling well...
Or release Age of Empires, Starcraft and CC at same time and complain that RTS is not selling well...
Or release 20 PC games that take 60 hours to finish at the same time and complain that PC games don't sell...
Movies nowadays have two release dates; Theatrical and Home. A lot of times, a movie that had performed poorly in the theater will make up the losses in the Home release. For the Home release, there are some "extras" thrown in, but the movie itself is mostly untouched.
Perhaps a game that is delayed is using a similar process -- release a product early in the year, then release it *again* later in the year (around Christmas?), with some "extras;" "a second bite of the sales apple," as Mr. Matthews put it.
I think delaying a game has everything to do with a new marketing strategy; only a tiny part of it has to do with "polishing."
Now as far as 2010 is looking, I think it is an odd play. To avoid competing with the Christmas rush they have created a first of the year rush. The gift cards won't last long and then you will have a huge amount of games being released and no holiday excuse to buy them. I think it will do worse than a bigger Christmas rush.
It would be interesting to see a trend for game release dates and intended audience though. I think the 'M' titles would be less effected by spacing, where-as titles aimed at kids that require parent intervention to buy them will choke without a 'reason' to buy games (ie holiday gifts)... but I know of no such data, so it is only a hunch.
More kick-ass games in the summer months would be sweet, though.
I welcome spread out release dates. I'm not really concerned with paying off stuff in January as much as I am getting another paycheck from which I can draw another game out of my entertainment budget, possibly another one if I skimp a little on some food.
I think any time is a good time to release games, to be honest. Especially the March-May stretch, I know I'm usually wrapped up with the Christmas New and starting to thumb through the backlog while I await the next thing that tickles my fancy.
Plus any extra bug fixing time is definitely appreciated, if such a push back allows for such a thing.
For example, let's say that I can complete 1 game per month. In December they release 12 games I want to play. I buy 1, play it. In January, I buy another one of those December releases and play it. And so on and so forth. Now, let's say that they release one of those game each month over the course of the year. Same thing. Buying one game per month and playing it.
More market analysis of past titles is definitely needed.
What happen is: Like you said, people will buy LATER the game, not when the company want.
So they are only moving game releases to when they want the sales, got it?