EA discovers the rest of the year!

[androvsky]

Notice: Biting sarcasm ahead, aimed at the industry in general, not just EA

Ya know how everyone complains about how so many publishers insist on releasing their big titles during the holiday season? How the summer months, when kids have nothing better to do and probably aren't playing outside anyway, are virtually devoid of new game releases? Ever notice how the movie industry can release big movies in both the summer AND winter?

Guess what! EA has noticed it too!

Originally Posted by Grand Master of the Obvious

"I think the industry has finally gone, 'Wow, we could probably just come out just like the movies do'. Movies launch on Christmas day, they launch blockbusters during the summer, and we're now learning that we could probably launch a game at any time, and if it's a good game it will be well received.

"I think that we traditionally thought that people only buy games at Christmas or around holiday time, and now we're looking back and going, 'You know what, GTA launched in May; Resident Evil comes out in March'."

Yes, I'm going overboard, but the industry's self-fulfilling prophecies regarding holiday sales is quite frustrating. Hollywood went through the exact same thing with Star Wars showing them that it's okay to release a big movie in the summer.

To be fair, the tone of the quotes suggest Glen Schofield is just as frustrated as most everyone else, but it took EA having a difficult season for him to be able to get his message out.

[Cyorg]

I buy games all year... Well I would if they released good games all year.

[richieb1971]

Originally Posted by Cyorg

I buy games all year... Well I would if they released good games all year.

I buy good games no matter what time of the year they come out. I prefer not to spend my Xmas's with 18 games piled up to play.

I get hay fever something bad in the summer, playing games allows me to calm down a bit.

[Maximus]

Finally. It could take some upheaval with development schedules though. Right now most publishers are geared towards 50% of their releases in Oct/Nov and the rest over the other 10 months.

Hopefully EA can do well out of this, they really deserve it after putting out the great quality stuff over the last year.

[Marine Mike]

Whats funny is that I probably spend the least amount of money towards video games during the Holiday Season in comparison to the rest of the year.

[Xerios]

Summer (when there is usually a drought of games. i play a massive amount)

[Marquoz]

I think it's asinine to have all the good games coming out at one time! There's only so many christmas presents you can get at once, and only so many games you can play at once. There will be a lot of games that will get completely lost in the shuffle!

Release them staggered during the year and do it when there's a drought of good games. It will have awesome sales because there is nothing else out there.

[daevv]

Well their sports games will be released the same time every year (between August and November) so they have all the rest of the year for the others.