Release Trends and Success.

I was prompted to make this topic by today's Spore release. A game release on Sunday. Which is something you don't see very often.

Most times, you see a release on Tuesday, hopefully street dated. If not, you unwrap the plastic on Wednesday. Why exactly? I like to think that the people who buy the game right off are the ones who will give it word of mouth to friends, which will in turn lead to huge booms on Friday and Saturday. I don't understand *why* exactly anyone would want to do this, because a game is a game any day of the week.

Does a game almost invariably sell more if it is injected into the market this way? Is it a steam-killer to flood the market with copies on weekends? If so, why is EA doing it with Spore?

An interesting question, indeed.

I follow games on the internet, I dont care what day they are released. I dont see how releasing games on different days would affect sales. If its a good game gamers will buy it.

Quite an interesting question, sir.

I always thought that DVD and game releases on weekdays was because of the general workweek that people tend to have. It seems more people are off on weekends, or have shorter work hours on weekends. I don't think it really is a "steam-killer" to release games on weekends, I actually don't see a problem with it. I think EA has high expectations for Spore, and expect it to sell well no matter what day they released it on.

What I want to know is why companies can't get their shit together and have the game available on Tuesday everywhere, like DVD's are.

Yeah, my question is why people seem so afraid to differ from the Tuesday-ship, Wednesday-sell formula though. I've never seen anything proving its effectiveness.

I guess they're so afraid to differ from it because it's tried and true?

Who knows. Both Mercs 2 and Spore were released on Sunday though, and they were both EA related.

From what I understand, Sunday is a popular day to release games in japan, because gaming is such a big thing over there that people take sick days from school or work to play a really big new release, so they started to release them on Sundays so most people were off work. Some Japanese games that were released on Sundays were given a worldwide release date, therefore they were released on Sundays worldwide. These games sold pretty well, so now games companies think that releasing on a Sunday = big sales.

"I was prompted to make this topic by today's Spore release. A game release on Sunday. Which is something you don't see very often.

Most times, you see a release on Tuesday, hopefully street dated. If not, you unwrap the plastic on Wednesday. Why exactly? I like to think that the people who buy the game right off are the ones who will give it word of mouth to friends, which will in turn lead to huge booms on Friday and Saturday. I don't understand *why* exactly anyone would want to do this, because a game is a game any day of the week.

Does a game almost invariably sell more if it is injected into the market this way? Is it a steam-killer to flood the market with copies on weekends? If so, why is EA doing it with Spore?

An interesting question, indeed."

"From what I understand, Sunday is a popular day to release games in japan, because gaming is such a big thing over there that people take sick days from school or work to play a really big new release, so they started to release them on Sundays so most people were off work. Some Japanese games that were released on Sundays were given a worldwide release date, therefore they were released on Sundays worldwide. These games sold pretty well, so now games companies think that releasing on a Sunday = big sales."

"Jayge said:

"I was prompted to make this topic by today's Spore release. A game release on Sunday. Which is something you don't see very often.

Most times, you see a release on Tuesday, hopefully street dated. If not, you unwrap the plastic on Wednesday. Why exactly? I like to think that the people who buy the game right off are the ones who will give it word of mouth to friends, which will in turn lead to huge booms on Friday and Saturday. I don't understand *why* exactly anyone would want to do this, because a game is a game any day of the week.

Does a game almost invariably sell more if it is injected into the market this way? Is it a steam-killer to flood the market with copies on weekends? If so, why is EA doing it with Spore?

An interesting question, indeed."

You are totally over thinking this.  Most places receive there shipmints on a tuesday or a wesday ( even if one place gets their's earler they still have to wait for most of everyone else to sell it)  When its not on one of those days its moslty done for a promotional reason.  Spore on Sunday... come one thats ez, you don't have to be religious to see why."

"MattyFTM said:

"From what I understand, Sunday is a popular day to release games in japan, because gaming is such a big thing over there that people take sick days from school or work to play a really big new release, so they started to release them on Sundays so most people were off work. Some Japanese games that were released on Sundays were given a worldwide release date, therefore they were released on Sundays worldwide. These games sold pretty well, so now games companies think that releasing on a Sunday = big sales."

That's exactly right.  I see no correlation between which day of the week a game is released on and it's overall sales numbers.  If anything, Spore got even more press by being a  little bit different and releasing on Sunday instead of Tuesday, or any other day of the week for that matter.

"

I really don't think that the day of the week has to do with how many copies of a game are sold. I think you're thinking into this way too much Jayge. :P