Released Between Christmas and New Year's Day

Overview

The end of the year is often treated as a "dead period" for the video game industry. Sales peak between September and Christmas as video games are popular gifts, and publishers will generally target this period for big releases. As a result, very few games tend to come out in the days following Christmas, after the holiday sales boost has ended.

Traditionally, releasing a video game immediately after Christmas will lead to abysmal sales, from a lack of media coverage and decreased consumer interest. Downloadable games and indie games tend to fare better, and post-Christmas releases for games (especially re-releases and compilations) have become somewhat more common since the popularization of digital distribution, but game releases in this period still tend to get looked over.

This rule is less adhered-to for Japanese releases. In fact, doujin games especially tend to release in this time period, due to Winter Comiket taking place during the last week of December every year since 1991.