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- Video Game Release Dates: A Rant
- Posted About 1 year ago by Sean
I've got a bone to pick with video game developers and the retailers who enable their abusive behavior. So if any of those guys are, you know, reading this, listen up!
First a little bit of background: When Coop and I were at PAX this year, one of the only game demos I played was for Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. Going back to my coin-op childhood days of After Burner, air combat games have consistently been my favorite genre. Top Gun on my NES, Desert (and Jungle) Strike on my Genesis, even the Rogue Squardron games on my GameCube come right to mind as being simple enough to pick up and put down, but complex enough to keep me involved for a substantial period of time. And seeing the demo version of AC6 showed me much better this genre could be on a next-gen system. There was really no decision to make: this game would be mine.
And so, in the months that have passed since PAX (is it really already close to November?!) I have been eagerly anticipating walking into my local game retailer, handing over my $60 and ruling the skies. And according to the website of one major game seller, the release date for this title would be Tuesday, October 23rd. AKA- Today.
So there I was at the downtown Gallery mall at ten o'clock this morning (okay, it was really closer to eleven, but it took me a while to leave the apartment today...) ready to play and review the latest air combat sim. I walked in and asked the clerk for one copy (I said please...) He looked it up in his computer and informed me it wasn't on sale until tomorrow.
"Impossible", I told him, "your own website says it goes on sale today."
"No," he said, "it ships today. It won't be on sale until tomorrow."
Which brings me to my point: What the hell is this "ship date" versus "street date" all about? Do gamers really give a damn what date the developers put the games into a box and put a label on that box? No! Gamers care about buying and playing games! Why do I, as a gamer and a consumer, have to know about internal corporate "ship dates"? Wouldn't it be easier for all involved to just make it one date? I mean, if I knew it was Wednesday, I would have gone on Wednesday.
Books go on sale in bookstores on Tuesdays. Albums hit record store shelves on Tuesday. All pre-order and advertising for these products only advertise one date: the on-sale date. Only gamers have to extrapolate sale dates from vague information.
So to game developers, retailers, and the people who post on-sale dates on websites: GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! Just tell us one date, no one cares when something ships.
Although, in an ironic twist, since I hated the idea of leaving the store empty-handed, I did pick up a copy of Orange Box. So much for trying to send a message...
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Comments
they really need to make release years. Much more realiable.
It just seems to me that there is no benefit to giving ship dates to customers at all. All of these problems of customers calling retailers liars could be avoided if there was only one date.
Also, when I went at opening this morning to get my copy of Ace Combat 6, I found out that the shipment hadn't even arrived yet. So one trip to the game store turned into three.
I did eventually get it.
I wouldn't jump to such conclusions as lumping retailers into this mess. I'm a store manager for one and I always tell my staff to relay the differerence to the consumers so to make less confusion. It doesn't help that my company calls the reserve customers on the ship date instead of the sale date either, but I have to agree that I wish there was a much simplier way of handling this.....if I had a dollar for everytime I had a phone call or walk in customer come in on the ship date versus the sale date I wouldn't need to work again!
I've given up on planning any events based on release or ship dates. I've been left twiddling my thumbs a couple of times after planning something weeks in advance only to have the release date changed at the last minute and the event canceled.
I think working at Gamestop has jaded me from relating to you on this one. I have had too many parents actually call me a liar because a game they want shipped on a Tuesday and they thought it arrived on a Tuesday. The problem is with games as rushed as they are to begin with and hundreds of thousands of copies being sent at once all over the country they don't have time to ship them in advance.
I would have to say that assuming they have a strategy it worked.
You bought a game and will be back in the near future to buy the game you wanted.
I don't understand why video game retailers advertise the ship date as opposed to the street date either. It leaves me hopelessly confused as to whether a game is available on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Most other forms of media entertainment are available Tuesday. Why should video game retailers wait as the video games sit in boxes to sell them to eager customers? What difference does a day make if they already have the games today?
One more reason, perhaps, to start pre-ordering video games more often? =l
I guess game developers don't care about our precious time only their own.