Why the dearth of upcoming releases?

[[ODG]EODTech]

Like I did my last tour, I made a big list of games that will be out when I get home. My fantasy is to have a stack of like twelve games waiting for me (with a bottle of Jack beside them) when I walk in the door. Of course my gaming time will be secondary to playing with my boy this time, but still, I want to know what games will be released by then.

But I've noticed that starting around 01 DEC of this year, there are very few solid release dates for big-name titles. Is this an anomaly or is it something the industry is going to now? Back in May I knew what games were being released out to November, often down to the exact day. Now most games after November just have "Q1 12" or "Q2 12" in the date.

Is it that there are simply not a lot of releases in the next six or so months? Or something else, like maybe new fiscal year numbers haven't come out yet? But that doesn't make sense, we're a month into FY 12.

For instance, after December there is literally nothing that looks even remotely interesting (I haven't checked sports and racing games since I hate them, so I admit there might be some of those) until Mass Effect 3 in March. Why the big gap?

[.Heavy]

One of two things I consider.

They are hoarding the secrets for the big Holiday Push which should happen sometime after the Tun Tavern Birthday.

Or the economy in retail is so bad that Developers are following EA's lead and re-tooling for direct download/support/Mailing etc.

There is not much money in games anymore because Gamers are more demanding with bigger and stronger systems to match (As well as Broadband/ I recently got Fiber) requiring Developers to build the next game title bigger and better than what came before. IF they don't; they risk leaving hundreds of thousands of disks piling up in the Bargain bin.

I don't know your age so bear with me.

(School time kids...)

Long ago when the 80's was king while Disco died a death rattle, Atari was supreme in gaming other than Coin Op. Coin Op was absolutely the biggest business ever next to movies. Then one day Coin op died with Atari's growing dominance. Buy a game one time with a console and TV and you can play just about the same games for as long as you like.

Coin op never truly died. The Military adapted a few "Battle Zone" comes to mind. for the so called secret tank sim.

Until all the games were played and new releases were... really bad. When the economy collapsed again this time to start it's Regean-nomics grind upwards with intent to bury the USSR; Atari could not sell bins and piles at 5 dollars or less. That works out to roughly... 10 dollars in today's money. Min wage back then was around 3.35 if I recall.

They collapsed to be replaced by Sega and others Eventually emerging again into the CD Movie Rental and so forth and gibberish, rubbish and so on.

DOOM was the game that dragged the PC kicking and screaming into reality. I recall the CNN Media at the time going nuts because chainsawing and shotgunning bad guys is rotting your brain and will turn you and your children into some kind of spawn of lawless evil. HAH! Little do they know..

That's all folks.


Now. I suspect MW3 and BF3 will rule for now to Christmas with the associated boost in hardware as addicted children plot, scheme and annoy parents and spouses for the stuff.

Then the long slow decline into DLC fed revenue into 2012. What? I paid 80 frigging dollar! WHere is my patch!? what?! 30 dollars?!@

And so on so forth and rubbish.


There was a time you actually paused and waited a few moments to steel yourself with a quick rest, peck with the Girl and get back into the fight. Today impatient little ones scream LAGGER!

When Lag is gone what is left? A bunch of aging grumps demanding broadband in the Nursing home to go with the IV support.