Why are so few games released in Summer?

[Urthor]

Just an odd thing I was thinking about, but I'm surprised at how big the contrast is between films and video gaming and how they treat the summer release window.

You'd think that with chunks of the northern hemisphere on summer vacation and with a lot of free time on their hands, that this would be the time when kids and adults are playing more games. More free time, more video games, more dollars shilled away.

And yet, AAA popamole or super artistic point and click, the preferred window for games is of course overwhelmingly Christmas and 4th quarter first (last year's 4th quarter was so ridiculously cramped I'm almost certain that sales of otherwise successful AAA games were tanked, and not just Titanfall 2), but otherwise stuff is generally equally spread across the quarters, except for June/July/August. Films, obviously, have summer blockbusters and make a ton of their money in summer, before releasing most of the actually good films of the year in the two months before Oscar date, Nolan and Baby Driver being exceptions.

Now obviously E3 is in June and that does mean saturation of the gaming press for the 3 weeks after E3, but we're just coming out of July and into August and I can't help but notice the release calendar, AAA or otherwise, has been super barren across all genres.

What's up with this?

 

[Fedora Master]

Normies go outside and have fun with their friends and family during the summer, they don't play games. Despite this, they are the target audience for most publishers.
Autistic gaming nerds stay inside all year round anyway so they're not a factor.

 

[fantadomat]

It is fascinating how asocial people on the codex are.

 

[sullynathan]

I think there's a statistic to show that games don't sell that well in the summer

 

[fantadomat]

I think there's a statistic to show that games don't sell that well in the summer

Also devs are taking vocations too.

 

[daveyd]

Normies go outside and have fun with their friends and family during the summer, they don't play games. Despite this, they are the target audience for most publishers.
Autistic gaming nerds stay inside all year round anyway so they're not a factor.

Arguably July and August would be a good time for indies to release, though. You'd think they'd be more likely to get some press when there aren't a ton of new AAA games hogging the spotlight. And since it's mostly us "autistic gaming nerds" who buy indies, the whole "too busy having fun in the sun" thing shouldn't be a factor.

Perhaps indie developers just tend to release games whenever they're ready and can't really afford to sit and wait months for the optimal release date because they need money for bills n' stuff.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Summer is hot and disgusting, you sweat all the time and start to smell funny unless you buy special summer clothes which cost money and are not guaranteed to save you from heat once you go outside so what's the point anyway.
Better stay inside in your comfy clothes and play videogames all day long (or even better - sleep during day when it's hot, play during night when it's breezy and there are no normies to disturb you). Why game developers can't understand this??

 

[Wehraboo]

Summer from Bethesda boards is a disgusting whore. I bet a lot of gamers have released in her.

 

[bylam]

Mostly speaking from MMO experience but...
#1 - Don't release a game when large numbers of your staff are going on vacation
#2 - Don't release a game too close to E3 or you get zero coverage from press
#3 - Don't release a game when the people with the most time to play (students) are not around to play
#4 - Journalists take vacations too, so don't expect coverage in summer at all.

People tend to avoid both summer and the weeks right around Christmas for the above reasons.