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

[Vinny Carrella]

Observations are fine but what is this saying about the business? What
are the advantages to releasing a game a day? Why do these sites do what
they do? What is the behavior of the typical end-user and how do they
interact with the site? What do end-users want? Does anyone talk to Jane
Q. Public consistently enough to know? And if they knew would they even
share that information?
 
Questions, questions...
 
Thanks James, that round-up was interesting.

  _____  

From: James C. Smith [mailto:james at reflexive.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:51 AM
To: casual_games at igda.org
Subject: [casual_games] Finding patterns in portals' release dates of
new downloadable casual games



(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 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 to see a 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 World Wide What's
New This Week chart.


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