High Dynamic Range Lying

The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and you`re probably dead drunk, beaming from ear to ear as you lie on the grass looking up to the sky. Spring time is a beautiful thing. Here in Japan, it`s Hanami season. It`s that special time when everyone gathers in parks to see the cherry blossom trees bloom for a few scant weeks. Families go with kids in tow, walking around and marvelling at nature`s most beautiful work in action. Candy pink cherry blossoms bloom and shine, their twigs dancing in the wind as you continue to look up at the sky.

Your friend rummages through your personal belongings. It`s okay. He`s a friend after all. He finally pulls out a stack of games, and looks back at you in astonishment. “Did these all just release?” he exclaims. “You bet,” you reply. You look back up to the clear blue sky, and listen to the rustling cherry trees. Now this is Spring Time Fun.

While the early months from February to early August have an average of one or two quality titles in North America, the months of March and April alone have the following releases in Japan: Gyakuten Saiban 4 (逆転裁判４), Monster Hunter Portable 2, Super Robot Wars W (スーパーロボト大戦W), Hokuto no Ken (北斗の拳), Grim Grimoire, Super Paper Mario, Persona 3 FES, and Musou Orochi (無双OROCHI). Each title is considered a high quality title, and each has, or likely will, receive great reviews from all around the industry.

Meanwhile, 1up Yours’ John Davison congratulates Microsoft for having a single solid title for the Xbox 360 every month until the late months of the year. While this is quite an achievement for releases on a single console, the sad state of affairs is that this is the single biggest achievement for the American release scene for the early months of 2007. While many importers will be clamoring for copies of Japanese releases, most North American gamers will be sitting around waiting for the next big title to hit store shelves.

Of course, some may suggest that it’s not such a bad scenario. After all, many people don’t buy more than a single game a month, and that’s great. The sad truth is that this does not just affect gamers; it affects developers as well.

Any person that took high school physics knows that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this situation is no different. American releases schedules have just as many titles shipping to market as the Japanese market, yet the months from February to July have a veritable drought.

The American publishing schedule is a strange beast. Most publishers favor releasing their biggest games in the fall and winter seasons, starting in October, leading all the way up to the start of January. Christmas is the most important time of the year to ship games, just as the summer season is the Hollywood bread and butter. The biggest publishers start their onslaught of marketing around August and September, and the cacophony of industry speak doesn’t wind down until all the games have already been released.

Large titles like Metal Gear Solid, Halo and Final Fantasy have the marketing machine heralding their arrival, raising them above the “Mer de Noms” that surely confuses even the most seasoned of holiday shoppers. Publishers feel it necessary even to release their lesser known titles at the same time, having them fight out with the heavyweights, albeit with a smaller marketing budget, and almost no exposure otherwise. Shoppers already have a plethora of titles on their Must Buy lists, and it’s likely that list will not expand.

The two major barriers for entry when considering multiple game purchases in the holiday season are time and money. Unlike movies and music cds, which, while being prohibitively expensive in their own right, are still affordable in multiples, individual game releases are releasing between $29.99 and $69.99. With a new generation of game consoles, this point becomes increasingly more important. When each game costs more, gamers are less likely to purchase more titles.

Time is another very important, but often overlooked issue. Quite simply, games take time. Movie marathons can sometimes be a bit of a chore, but any movie watcher, seasoned or not, can go through 4 two hour movies in eight hours. Movies don’t require any skill to finish. Eight hours of video always takes eight hours to view. Game completion, on the contrary, is dependent on the gamer. Painfully short games average in the 3-4 hour range, while RPGs can clock in the 40-70 hour range. When you consider that these completion times are the average for seasoned gamers, the mind boggles as it tries to figure out how long it takes the average casual gamer to complete. Even with millions of dollars at their disposal, the average casual gamer simply does not have time to complete more than a game or two during the Christmas season.

This means that many titles go completely overlooked. Last generation, excellent titles, such as Michel Ancel’s Beyond Good and Evil went completely overlooked. Like its underappreciated brethren, Beyond Good and Evil’s lack of success can be attributed to its release schedule, drowning in a sea of rabid competition.

Can titles really benefit from a simple change in release? It has happened before, with dazzling results. The Midway published survival horror title The Suffering was a solid title from a relatively unknown developer, but garnered great sales, because of its release. It released on March 8th, 2004.

There’s no denying that some titles have a niche audience. They are not bad games, but their audiences tend to be smaller than the heavyweight holiday releases. Many of these titles could benefit from market expansion, due in part to hungry gamers, looking for something to play. It is said that hunger is the greatest spice, and it surely applies to games. When a gamer has nothing to play, they often turn to genres and series they never paid any mind, hoping to find something to satiate them until their mainstays arrive.

The Phoenix Wright series (逆転裁判) started as not much more than an experiment in the US, Capcom dipped its toe into the pool. While the series had received relative success on the Gameboy Advance in Japan, the temperature in the US is far different. Unlike Japan, where small housing, long work hours, and an excellent train system mean most people spend a vast majority of their lives away from home, US gamers tend to value home gaming more than portable.

For Phoenix Wright to become a success, Capcom made the right decision by releasing the second title in the series in January, despite the protests by many gamers. By missing the holiday rush, and releasing in January, the series not only managed to capture the audience it initially garnered with the release of the original game, but it managed to steal away new fans.

Releasing in the slow months benefits small games the most. Games that either do not have sufficient marketing to lift them above the crowd, or excellent portable games, need to be given the proper breadth to be recognized. The fact of the matter is that some of the best original titles often times get very little marketing. Companies are afraid to pour money into an unknown commodity, especially if the franchise itself doesn’t ape an already existent one.

Large publishers are afraid enough to invest in a franchise that might or might not pay off. Considering that most publishers like EA and Activision are more interested in gaining profit from existent popular franchises, and the fact that game development prices are quickly climbing, a change in the way games are released would be a fool proof idea for everyone involved. Publishers trying risky franchises could push those releases to the summer months, ensuring that a hungry market gets exactly what they want, while large titles like Madden and Halo could battle it out in the winter months for holiday market share.

The american market tends to favor home console titles over portable titles, which is quite the opposite in Japan. What better way to release games like Gyakuten Saiban 4 in the United States than during a drought? The same can be said for any game with a less than stellar marketing budget, or even a fairly niche audience. Besides, even American gamers need something to make Spring time that much more fun.