Release Me

When is the best time of year to release an MMORPG?

Major single player games all seem to come out for the Christmas buying spree; film releases seem to be timed to coincide with school holidays - but MMORPGs don’t seem to fall into any seasonal pattern at all.

The dates of this years big name releases are: The Saga of Ryzom - 16th June, The Matrix Online - 1 July, World of Warcraft - 30th August, Wish - 1st October. In between these we have: Ultima X: Odyssey, Guild Wars, Mutant Chronicles, Face of Mankind, Warhammer Online etc etc.

The only pattern I can see is publishers are avoiding releasing games on the same day - other than that the logic defeats me. I can see an argument for an Autumn release in the northern hemisphere as the nights start to draw in and a virtual sun becomes more appealing - but publishers don’t seem to be biting on this.

Then again are MMORPGs really released these days?

We go from small alpha to closed beta to open beta to – now start paying for it, by this time the basic community has formed the PR is out.

So perhaps the usual logic of consumer product release just does not apply. Timing is in fact based on a balance between gaining as much information as you can from trials (including the critical go / no-go decision) then getting the cash flowing in as quickly as possible.

Comments

[David]

1.

I'd say that MMORPGs are released at near the end / beginning of the university schedule.

For example, UIUC's summer session begins on June 14 (close to Saga's July 16 release date) and the fall session begins on August 28 (close to Worlds of Warcraft's August 30 release date)

This is rather convenient, since most universities have extremely fast connections, and the beginning of the semester is the often easiest (i.e. one can slack off at least till midterms)

Personally, I'm starting med school in the fall, and I'm sure that WoW coincides evilly with my ambitions to start on a good note (^_^)

[greglas]

2.

This seemed apt, Ren.

[Dave Rickey]

3.

In most cases the release date is "When does the money run out?" Feature sets are trimmed to meet that date, hopefully well in advance and not in the last couple of months.

--Dave

[bruce rogers]

4.

If you're trying to figure out when the publishers thought was a good time to release, subtract 10 to 20 months from the ship date. :)

[Nathan Combs]

5.

What about the flip-side of Ren's question: is there any clearly *bad* time to release an MMORPG? For example, are the holidays bad precisely because of the single player game lock? How much competition is there between MMORPGs and single player games for mind/wallet share?

[Dave Rickey]

6.

If we assume that tie ratios (peak logins to total subscriptions) are indicative of overall interest in MMOG's, then December through March would be the best time, and May-June-July the worst. If I ever have the luxury of choosing a launch date for maximum effect, I'd probably put in late January to early February, at the peak of interest but after the single-player marketing rush around October to December, and during the TV re-run season before March sweeps.

--Dave

[greglas]

7.

Obviously, the devs and publishers know a lot more about their business models than me. But blithely ignoring that fact --

I remember that TSO was shooting for retail release during the Christmas shopping season, and there was a sense that a few weeks of delay cost them on retail purchases. Of course, it would seem that the standard model in MMOGs is that, unless you're actually planning to churn thru subscribers, you're banking on monthly subscription eclipsing revenues from box sales -- so (unlike non-sub games) it's as important that you keep folks happy as it is that you get their relatives to impulse-buy a pretty box for them.

Honestly, I can't imagine that in this market anyone would knowingly delay an MMOG that is really ready to ship because they thought the timing would be better later. More likely they would delay it (meaning extend the beta) to iron out bugs, add features, and build up marketing hype. The risk of any delay, of course, is that few people are playing multiple MMOGs (so first-movers win), people tend to get happily locked into a particular MMOG (so first-movers win again), and the tech is constantly leap-frogging (so any delay means you're more likely to get eclipsed by the next big MMOG with snazzier graphics).

Which, I guess, is no different from what Dave said. You work like crazy to get the thing done and release something (that is likely to be imperfect) as quickly as you can (when the money runs out).

In other words -- I agree with what you said:

>So perhaps the usual logic of consumer product release just does not apply. Timing is in fact based on a balance between gaining as much information as you can from trials (including the critical go / no-go decision) then getting the cash flowing in as quickly as possible.

[Ren]

8.

Now to display in equal measures my fascination and ignorance of MMORPG marketing…

Dave > If we assume that tie ratios (peak logins to total subscriptions) are indicative of overall interest in MMOG's, then December through March would be the best time, and May-June-July the worst.

Ah, so maybe there is a seasonal effect after all. Though from a release date point of view one might need to factor in stuff like the degree of cannibalisation of the existing MMORPG market and wonder whether there is an inverse relationship between interest in the game that you are playing and a interest in a new game you might play. Though on the whole I would thing that winter => interesting in gaming generally hence good time to release game.

Nate> How much competition is there between MMORPGs and single player games for mind/wallet share?

I think we do need to split out the two factors (assuming that there is a large shared market i.e. most MMORPG gamers are potential single player games).

Mind share is generally a factor of market noise and around xmas noise is high.

Wallet share is different. Here I think we need to consider the box price and subscription price of an MMORPG and the degree to which these influence the initial purchase decision and game dynamics.

On the one hand you could argue that the box price should be zero as this removes a barrier to getting into the world, then on the mud against the wall theory you would get more subscribers – but who wants to be thrown against a muddy wall i.e. who want to be in an MMORPG with lots of n00b’s that may or may not come back.

So box price should probably be set both to cover cost of sale (packaging, distribution etc) and to have a certain filter factor (that the free MMORPGs are of course testing).

So the consumer does have a direct box vs box decision, given what we know about spending generally and entertainment spending specifically this must factor in.

However, I just don’t know how the subscription costs weighs on a consumers mind when they make that purchase, if they are an existing MMO player I guess its probably a decision to switch at some point, but for new players I don’t know how much they really thinking about it at the point of purchase – certainly subscription costs are generally not written in big letters on the front of the box.

Coming back to my original question, I think that Dave is right, Jan / Feb does seem like the right time to launch: you have a consumer base that is likely to be interested, lower marketing spend by single player games and a good number of people who did get single player games for Christmas probably will be getting board of (or at least familiar with) them by late Jan.

But then there are VC / company boards looking at balance sheets with all the flows running the wrong way – which probably throws all the marketing theory out of the window. Or as Dave put it 'when the money runs out'.

[Ren]

9.

Greg>Obviously, the devs and publishers know a lot more about their business models than me. But blithely ignoring that fact --

The veil of ignorance lays heavily upon this thread, well on us two at least. So groping around in the dark some more..

>I remember that TSO was shooting for retail release during the Christmas shopping season, and there was a sense that a few weeks of delay cost them on retail purchases.

This feels like an exception proving a rule. I think that TSO was aimed mainly at non-MMORPG players who had already bought into a single player product / brand. So here there was very direct competition with other single player games, what’s more there was the potential to leverage all kinds of existing brand marketing activity – hence critial to launch at Christmas. This just does not seem to apply for 99% of MMOs.

>Honestly, I can't imagine that in this market anyone would knowingly delay an MMOG that is really ready to ship because they thought the timing would be better later.

Indeed not. But if an MMO takes about 5 years to create and I was writing the marketing plan for one now (which I’m not btw) then I would have the luxury of putting all the kind of marketing theory that I usually put into business cases etc so would consider return on investment of marketing comms. And (taking Dave's line) I might want to strip out features to hit a mid winter launch rather than early spring - or to frame this in another classic way, given a fixed launch date one might be inclined to say: do you want it fancy or do you want it working.

[Betsy Book]

10.

on the whole I would thing that winter => interesting in gaming generally hence good time to release game.

Perhaps true for games that target adults. But if the target demo is American kids under 18 the best time is early summer, just as they're getting out of school for three long months and have loads more time to spend online. I have to believe this occurred to at least a few folks at Disney when they released Toontown in June last year.

[Cory Ondrejka]

11.

Unless they were shooting for an E3 launch and slipped :-)! Summer is tricky because people do weird things -- like going outside, taking family vacations -- which really interferes with game playing.

[illovich]

12.

"In most cases the release date is "When does the money run out?" Feature sets are trimmed to meet that date, hopefully well in advance and not in the last couple of months."

I have not read a truer analysis of the MMORPG release process.

[weasel]

13.

When is the right time to release a persistent world?
When it's done.

I don't think the genre really has to worry about seasonal target dates, when even oft-delayed releases are plagued with problems at release. When aiming for long-term commitments: bad first impressions are much worse than having to call, to say you'll be a bit late.

The genre is desperate for one or two high-profile, successful, stable launches to raise the bar.

As for the intent of the question:
I can imagine a plausible justification for just about any time for a launch, except early summer, and just after the holiday season.

Frankly, I don't think it actually matters so much - certainly not in the face of other concerns (stability, promised v delivered features, etc).

[Staarkhand]

14.

The market certainly is/has been plagued with unfinished games and embarassing releases, with first-year customers feeling like paying beta testers. Such an environment has led to the ironic fact that (e.g.) Blizzard's propensity to slip launch dates (by years) is a sign of credibility to gamers. But then they have the luxury of a reputation that doesn't require them to move first in order to attract customers. One must wonder which is that cart, and which the horse.

Another solution: when's the best time to release your latest expansion carrot with which you've been stringing customers along for some time (Jump to Lightspeed, Frontiers, ...)? Same time as WoW.

[ren]

15.

Staarkhand> (Jump to Lightspeed, Frontiers, ...)? Same time as WoW.

Doh, I so missed that until this afternoon when I was having one of those 'where is my x-wing? conversations with a fellow SWGer, when bing: "oh it would be right about the time that WoW is out" I thought.

If I can find a comprehensive list of expansions I'll see how good the correlation is to WoW and Matrix.

[Abalieno]

16.

A mmorpg?

The release doesn't matter. The life of a mmorpg is based exclusively on its value. If you have a good product the peoples will pay it. The fact is that till you have to pay a monthly subscription the game must have some value, or the players will stop to play. Simple. "When" you release a mmorpg and the marketing affect the initial sales, not the real life of one of these ambitious projects.

And the dates you have there are nearly all wrong.