Justin Thorn

The weather is cooling, the leaves have changed colors, there is less daylight and the holidays are right around the corner. You know what that means. Gaming season is here. Everyone is familiar with the blockbuster movie season that typically starts in May around Memorial Day weekend. From that point through July 4th most of the major blockbuster films of the year are released. Why is that? I don’t know but that is just the way things are and the way they have been for as long as I can remember. As long as the movie studios continue to rake in the dough with this business practice I’m sure this type of release cycle will continue for years to come. For those of us who are gamers we know the video game industry works very similar. From mid-October through December many of the years biggest games crowd the store shelves at once. The problem with this is that games take much more time to play than watching a movie and they cost much more money. For this reason many games get overlooked temporarily or sometimes forever. There should be a better system for releasing games.

Back in the 80s and 90s when the NES, SNES and Sega Genesis game systems were at their peaks it made more sense to rush all your blockbuster titles out right before the holidays. That is what spurred game sales in the 4th quarter of the year. The gaming industry was young and so was most of their audience. Tons of kids (like myself) who otherwise couldn’t afford to regularly buy new video games put them on their wish lists in hopes of finding something new to play under the tree. Over 2 decades later that business model seems less than practical. Sure it is still true there are still lots of kids out there who play video games and rely on holidays to receive the newest titles. However, this demographic of gamers is now the minority. The average gamer today is in their 20s and 30s on up. Most of us have jobs and disposable income year round to spend on games YEAR ROUND. Sure, not all the biggest titles of the year are released in Q4 but a significant number of them are. Wouldn’t it make more sense to spread out these releases more evenly throughout the year. I can’t count the number of summers I was setting around wishing I had a new worthwhile game or two to play in the comfort of my A/C on a 110 degree day. This argument is nothing new. In fact many gamers and journalists alike have been discussing this problem for years. Will this ever change or will we always be forced to choose only a select few blockbuster titles at the end of the year in the interest of time or money constraints.

As time goes on and the complexity of gaming continues to grow this issue becomes more compounded. Consider how much gaming has changed in this generation of consoles from previous ones. “Back in the day” when you bought a game it was a standalone product. By saying that I mean that once you completed the game’s story there was little reason to replay the game unless it was superb. For this reason a games lifespan was much shorter than on today’s consoles. Today most games released for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 include some form of online capabilities. Most of these offer online multiplayer modes allowing co-op or competitive play with friends and strangers online. Bascially once you have completed the game’s story mode you have just scratched the surface of what it has to offer. There are still countless hours of game play fun to be had online with others. While this is great for adding value to your purchase and extending its play time it does cut into time to play newer titles. Of course if all your friends have abandoned a game you used to enjoy in favor of a newer title you are more likely to abandon ship too in order to continue playing with your friends. DLC (downloadable content) is another change that has come to this generations game consoles that has forever changed the way we think about and play games. No longer is that title completed when you have finished the story and become bored of the online multiplayer options. Instead of being sentenced to forever rest on the graveyard shelf with all your other old dust collecting titles in your collection they have a chance at extended life thanks to DLC. Now developers are spending lots of time and resources to release new downloadable content to breath new life into games that have been released months ago or over a year ago in some cases. Typically this involves new stories to explore in the game world or new levels for multiplayer action. Fallout 3 is a great example. This game was released in fall 2008 with 80+ hours of gameplay on the disc, assuming you play all the main quests and side quests that were offered. Thats an incredible amount of content for $60 but over the past year the developers have released 5 additional DLC packages offering 5-10 more hours of content with each release. All for another $10 each update on average.

Another great example of DLC extending the life of a great game is the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises. I bought Rock Band 2 for Christmas last year and continue to play it on a regular basis every week or two. Why? Well first of all its a great party game when friends come over but second, the included Music Store. Every week there are a handful of new songs and sometimes full albums released for DLC. Not only does this extend the life of the game for months or years after its initial release but it continues to put money in the developers pocket. Every time I purchase a song a $2 bill disappears.

For these reasons listed it has probably become much clearer why developers should spread their releases more evenly throughout the year and not focus on holiday sales alone. Its so easy to get lost in the choices and overlook titles you don’t have time to play or money to spend on all of them at once. Below are a list of the blockbuster titles that are coming out this holiday season. Many have already been released in October with the rest coming this month or next. The biggest title of them all is probably Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The original Modern Warfare was released over two years ago and is still an extremely popular title for online multiplayer. Which titles listed below do you plan on getting this holiday season? Which do you just not have time for even though your interested in them now? Do you think this crazy release cycle will ever change?

My hardcore gaming side is obviously most interested in Modern Warfare 2 for tomorrows release. The kid inside me is most looking forward to Super Mario Wii for nostalgia and the opportunity for hours of family fun playing the 4 player mode. Besides that I would love to give Forza 3 a spin and delve into Assassins Creed II sometime. Although I have a feeling they may get pushed till early next year on my schedule.