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What does Electronic Arts have against Tuesdays?
Rock Band 2 comes out this Sunday. Just like Spore came out last Sunday. And Mercenaries 2 the Sunday before it. Also this Sunday, the head start program for pre-orders of the Warhammer Online Collector's Edition begins, meaning the game is effectively live for people to start playing. What do all these games have in common? They're published by Electronic Arts.
Normally, games ship on Tuesdays. This is also how album and DVD releases work. The conventional wisdom is that Tuesday releases boost sales over the otherwise slow weekdays. If hot new stuff came out on Fridays -- you know, the day that would mean you had all weekend to enjoy it -- then retail sales would be even more weekend-heavy than they already are. It's a convention based on what's convenient to retailers. Note that entertainment that doesn't rely on retailers -- movies and television, for instance -- doesn't have this Tuesday fixation. So it says something about the balance of power when Electronic Arts starts releasing games on a Sunday.
I asked one of the company's reps about the string of Sunday releases. "I don't know...it's weird," he said, adding that he'd "ask ops or CorpComm". Which makes EA sound like it's run by the Master Control Program from TRON. However, the Sunday releases don't look like a trend that will continue. EA's upcoming titles such as SimCity Creator, Crysis: Warhead, and Red Alert 3 all have the usual early week release dates.
By Trent Polack at 10:19 AM ON 09/12/08
I was wondering the same thing this week. I hate Sunday releases. It doesn't really give me a whole lot of weekend time to enjoy a new game.
I wonder how the day-one Sunday sales of these games, well for Mercenaries 2 and Rock Band (I would consider Spore an outlier) compares to their Tuesday/Wednesday releases.
And I don't really consider Tuesday releases to be actual Tuesday releases because, save for the huge game titles, I can rarely find a copy on store shelves until Wednesdays.
By Dustin at 11:35 AM ON 09/12/08
I thought that it has to do with Sundays being the biggest shopping day of the week for Americans, retail or otherwise.
By AK at 4:21 PM ON 09/12/08
Yet here in the UK, we usually get Friday releases. (Go to GAME in Canary Wharf at 5:15 on a Friday and there's a queue of serious men in quite expensive suits trying not to look each other in the eye). I wonder why the difference?
By Zeus at 4:14 AM ON 09/13/08
"...it's weird," he said, adding that he'd "ask ops or CorpComm". Which makes EA sound like it's run by the Master Control Program from TRON.
Hehe. Good one, Tom.
By budgethero at 12:55 PM ON 09/13/08
wat's also weird is that except for wal-mart and the like, most other game centric stores are close early on sundays.
budgethero:
wat's also weird is that except for wal-mart and the like, most other game centric stores are close early on sunday...More »