Versions proposed for 2021, such as Gran Turismo 7, Gotham Knights, and Hogwarts Legacy, as well as those that have been talked about for a long time, such as God of War 2, are now aiming for release in 2022.
But why didn’t those delays occur in 2020? When the film industry hit the big pause button in 2020 (delaying and delaying many of its videos until 2021), video games were still launching at a steady pace. Delayed in 2020, many of them, such as Destiny 2 Beyond Light and Wasteland 3, went back a few months and were released until the end of the Calfinishar year.
For starters, comparing the delays of a movie and those of a video game is like apples and oranges. One of the main differences between the 2020 movie delays and the 2021 video game delays is that the movies delayed last year were already finished.
“A lot of those movies are already finished and [studios] can stream them on [video-on-demand] if they need to, but financially it doesn’t make sense and it wouldn’t possibly make as much money as it used to in theaters,” says Jeff Bock, a senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co.
But many video games take longer to expand than even the biggest main movie, and opting for a release date for a video game that’s still progressing is like trying to hit a moving target.
After talking to others with extensive knowledge in marketing and game creation, the answer to why gaming delays have been so difficult in 2021 is multifaceted. It turns out that release dates mistake beasts for tendrils that go far beyond whether a game is finished or not. And while the shadow of COVID-19 is going through almost every single delay this year, it has only added more headaches to the already confusing business of game promotion.
Release dates are a science that isn’t limited to putting a game on sale once it’s finished. Choosing a release date, especially for a main title, requires complex planning, as video game corporations collaborate with stores and business partners to maximize profit. fortune of launching a game.
According to a video game marketer at a AAA studio (with whom IGN spoke on condition of anonymity), the studios are working with analysts to analyze knowledge issues such as the adoption rate of new hardware or adjustments in spending behavior due to Hollywood. 19, and take it into account when deciding on the maximum date for financial falsification.
For this reason, a postponement should be taken lightly. Beyond the bad exposure and sadness of the players, the postponement of an attack has serious publicity consequences.
“You’re talking about betting with retailers’ channels, as well as marketing partners, virtual store owners, and other people who print the records, etc. ,” explains IGN’s marketing source.
“I can give you a few examples where, because we missed the dates of the titles, we missed the window so that the final edit would be in a position to get to the record labels in time for them to deliver it when we agreed to deliver it. It led to [the release of the album] being delayed by almost a year. Retailers, other people in the factories and replaced the projections for the quarter [and] the year.
Stephanie Tinsley, founder of Tinsley PR and another veteran who has worked with all types of video game developers and publishers, echoed this sentiment. She says the most productive way to describe the procedure and the thinking that goes into it, even when it hits a delay, depends on the scale of “how disruptive it is. “
“That’s the most productive way I can think of to say it. Because if your game is not just a virtual name but also a retail name, and you’re 4 weeks away from its release, you’ve already done all your retail marketing, your channel distribution agreements are already in place, you’ve set the dates, you’ve signed contracts, they’re going to charge you a lot more cash right now, so if you say, “Okay, this may not make it to 2021, let’s release it in the first part of 2022. “