That Old Holiday Rush

The latest edition of Gamasutra's Question of the Week, a feature which always garners responses from many industry professionals, asks whether the insane glut of top-name games that always surfaces during the holiday season is a good thing for the industry. Respondants considered the issue both from a creative and a financial point of view. In general, the answers fall into the camp of not considering the annual rush beneficial. One argument that is made, one to which many gamers can surely relate, is that there are so many desirable games released towards the end of the year that most end up being able to buy only the most "important" ones, leaving behind many other titles which would have gotten more attention at a less busy time. Some looked at it from a developer's perspective; many publishers feel the need to rush a game out the door, often before it is ready, to meet the all-important holiday season deadline.

"It certainly doesn't help developers... 22-hour days with nothing to eat but pizza and Jolt is bound to damage tender bodies. Publishers want revenue to be spread across the entire year, not jammed into a few "bet the farm" weeks; especially since any sort of economic disruption might destroy their entire year's profit. And consumers want to be able to read reviews and make leisurely comparisons, rather than being overwhelmed with a zillion titles at once. The one big advantage for consumers (but nobody else) is that so many titles will be in the remainder bin by the end of January!"

There were also a few responses claiming that the rush isn't all bad; for one thing, it means that developers more frequently have their downtime during the holiday season itself, since the games must be done before then. Of course, some also noted the increased spending on the part of consumers during the holiday season, which is the whole reason the exists, but even those responses indicated that there is a sales bottleneck regardless. For my part, I've always found the holiday season madness to be very frustrating. People simply can't afford to pick up all the good games that come out this time of year, and for such expensive items as games (expensive compared to other home entertainment, that is: music, movies, books, etc.) it seems odd that everything is so centralized. Even the film industry has at least two major release periods, and movies are much more affordable than games. It's sad to see so many good games completely bomb at retail because they were stacked up against the mega-marketed EA hits and absolute must-have titles during the holiday season.