[casual_games] Finding patterns in portals' release dates of new downloadable casual games

[James C. Smith]

(As usual, I am focusing here on PC downloadable casual games and not other
forms of casual games such as web playable or cell phone)

 

Now that GameSalesCharts.com <http://www.game-sales-charts.com/>  has
collected several months worth of game release dates, I have noticed some
interesting patterns.  I am not sure if this information is truly valuable
for any reason, but I find in interesting to watch.

 

The fallowing sites have had their new releases of downloadable games
tracked for at last 7 months. From this data I made the fallowing
observations

*	Big Fish Games - 7 new games per week - One new game every day
*	Game House - 4 or 5 new games per week - All new games released on
Wednesday (Beginning in 2007 Game House started release ~5 games per week
but for 6 months before that they always released 2 per week)
*	MSN - About 4 to 7 new games per week - Usually one big batch of new
games all released in a single day once per week with an occasional special
release of a single game on a separate day. The new games usually come
Wednesday. 
*	Pogo - About 5 to 6 new games per week - One big batch of new games
all released in a single day once per week.  The new games usually come out
Tuesday or Wednesday but not always.
*	Real Arcade - About 2 or 3 new games per week - Always released on
Wednesday  (Has been this way since at least 2003)
*	Reflexive - 7 new gamer per week - One new game every day (Reflexive
has been releasing a game a day for the past 3 weeks. Prior to this, they
always released 5 games per week. One per day on Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday and then two games on Thursday)
*	TryGames - Anywhere form 7 to 15 new games per week - All released
in one big batch on Tuesdays with an occasional special release of a single
game on a separate day.
*	Yahoo - About 2 to 4 new games per week - All released on Monday
(Recently Yahoo stopped publishing a 'New Games' list so this is based on
what they were doing up through September of 2006.)  

 

 

These sites have only been tracked for 4 weeks so these observations are
less reliable:

*	Arcade Town - About 4 new games per week - A new game every Monday,
Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday
*	Boonty - About 4 to 6 new games per week - One batch of games
released per week all on the same day - Usually Wednesday but could be
Monday or Tuesday 
*	Game Fiesta - Anywhere from 2 to 7 new games per week - Not really
enough data yet to see a pattern (if there is one)
*	iWin - About 5 new games per week - Usually 2 new games on Tuesday
and 2 or 3 more on Thursday
*	Shockwave - About 1 or 2 new games per week - Always released on
Tuesday
*	SpinTop Games - About 1 or 2 new games per week - Not really enough
data yet to see a pattern (if there is one)
*	WildGames - About 3 or 4 new games per week - Always released on
Wednesday

 

None of this is the official policy of any of the companies mentioned above.
This is just what I have observed from looking at the 'New Games' list on
their web sites every day.

 

A few overall observations:

*	A few sites release 7 or more games per week (TryGames, Big Fish,
Reflexive)
*	Some major sites only release 2 or 3 games per week (Real,
Shockwave)
*	Most sites release closer to 5 games per week
*	Tuesday and Wednesday are the most popular days to release new games
*	The majority of the sites release all their new games in one big
batch each week on a single day (even if it isn't the same day every week)
*	Many sites spread their new releases over several days (Arcade Town,
Big Fish, Reflexive, iWin, SpinTop)

 

Some web sites don't have a list labeled "New Games" or any single place
where all the newest releases are listed (or I just haven't found it yet.)
They just rotate the new games into the 'Featured' list or the 'Top 10' list
to promote them. This includes Yahoo and PlayFirst.

 

You can use GameSalesCharts.com <http://www.game-sales-charts.com/>  to see
a
<http://www.game-sales-charts.com/cms/index.php?option=com_dbquery&Itemid=33
&task=PrepareQuery&qid=8> Release Dates Calendar for each of the sites liked
above. You can also see an overview of all the recent releases from all the
sites in a single view using the
<http://www.game-sales-charts.com/cms/index.php?option=com_dbquery&Itemid=33
&task=ExecuteQuery&qid=50> World Wide What's New This Week chart.

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