why are european release dates so late?

sean corcoran

why is it that europe get most games so late? red dead redemption was out 3 days earlier in america and gears of war 3 is 3 days later here also. i think thats unfair to european gamers. even the japanese get these games earlier and they are further away from america. i think something should be done and we should just have worldwide release dates.

calex71

With the odd exception , our game get released on a Friday in time for the weekend which makes sense doesn't it , in the US they are released on the odd day of Tuesday

It still isn't as bad as it used to be often we waited several months for a game after it's US release. Remember Ghostbusters.

Retr0gamer

It used to be that most games had to be converted from NTSC to PAL which took a lot of work although most companies didn't bother and left us europeans with dreadful PAL conversions. The other reason is that the game has to be translated into a rake of different languages which takes a while depending on the game. In this day and age usually there sin't much of a delay unless it's a niche game with a small market or the company in question are arseholes that don't care about europe (Sony, Squaresoft are two examples). Usually the script is translated and voice work in different languages as the game is being completed for big releases

sean corcoran

calex71 wrote: »

With the odd exception , our game get released on a Friday in time for the weekend which makes sense doesn't it , in the US they are released on the odd day of Tuesday

It still isn't as bad as it used to be often we waited several months for a game after it's US release. Remember Ghostbusters.

still though its gonna kill me with gears 3. 60% of my freinds will be playing it on tuesday and i have to wait untill friday, very unfair

Mr E

Some huge games are released simultaneously worldwide. Lost Planet 2 and GTA4, for example.

Liber8or

I reckon Tuesday chosen as the normal release date for games has to do with it being the quietest day of the week in terms of retail earnings. Who goes shopping on a Tuesday? But, if you have to go in to get a new game just released, chances are you might pick up other items along the way. Where as, end of the week/weekends are the most profitable time anyway.

That would be my guess!

sean corcoran

the point im making though is i want gears 3 when it comes out not when it comes out here (if that makes sense)

Makaveli

It's a three day difference not a three month difference just suck it up and get over it.

Zapp Brannigan

Wow three days! That must seem like an eternity!

magick

Actually release dates arent as bad as in the bad old days of the Mega drive/Snes days when i was growing up. But I never understood Nintendo's constant long delay for the European market, even to this day.

sean corcoran

still though. fu****g americans

calex71

If Gears 3 is all you are worried about then you have a lot of sleepless nights until next april

Besides a big game like that will likely have a same day global release, In which case we will actually get it first with timezones etc.

rizzla

We got Alan Wake a week earlier than they did. It released the same day as Red Dead over there. It's not that bad really, compared to Australia.

calex71

rizzla wrote: »

It's not that bad really, compared to Australia.

Yeah poor bastards and the price of games there too :eek:

Reckoner91

If there's one thing I'm thankful for is that we Irish speak English. Could you imagine how many games would be translated into Irish, seeing as though we would be the only country that speaks it!?

Helix

sean corcoran wrote: »

still though its gonna kill me with gears 3. 60% of my freinds will be playing it on tuesday and i have to wait untill friday, very unfair

gears 3 is a worldwide simu-release

Helix

Reckoner91 wrote: »

If there's one thing I'm thankful for is that we Irish speak English. Could you imagine how many games would be translated into Irish, seeing as though we would be the only country that speaks it!?

the mgs localisation offices are in ireland actually, so you never know lol

Mr. K

I kinda prefer getting games on a Friday, it means I can easily shut out the world and play!

calex71

Helix wrote: »

the mgs localisation offices are in ireland actually, so you never know lol

Became aware of that little fact when the credits rolled at the end of Alan Wake, lucky so and so's

ScumLord

Because pirates need all the help they can get.. No wait that can't be right.

seraphimvc

Helix wrote: »

the mgs localisation offices are in ireland actually, so you never know lol

seriously?:eek: lol

Helix

seraphimvc wrote: »

seriously?:eek: lol

yup

Krieg

Most games but not all.

STALKER releases start in Russia, then a month later Europe, than America 2 months later (from what I remember).

Reckoner91

Also, anyone know there were Activision offices in town? And, of course, Havok is an irish-bred company. Why doesn't Ireland have a game development company by now?

gizmo

The Activison office in town is split between Demonware and Activision QA.

Havok, like Demonware, is also a middleware company.

The reason there is no large game development studios over here is unfortunately due to the lack of experienced developers in the country. You may have noticed David O'Meara from Havok speaking about this awhile back. Here's a link to the article in question. Since then other companies such as Intel and Microsoft have said similar things, albeit for slightly different markets.

Things will change over time but in the near future I don't think we're going to see any AAA development being done over here.

Syferus

I'm sure the people here who have lived long enough to remember even ten years ago contemporarily will have had a quiet chuckle at the idea that 3 days is 'so late', not even mentioning the endearingly simple idea from the OP that it had anything to do with the 'distance from America' or that it was the 'f***ing Americans' somehow slighting us. Likewise, a huge amount of games are not made in the US nor are they even released there first.

The fact is Tuesday is the traditional game release day in the US; in Ireland and the UK it's Friday.

Retr0gamer

gizmo wrote: »

The reason there is no large game development studios over here is unfortunately due to the lack of experienced developers in the country. You may have noticed David O'Meara from Havok speaking about this awhile back. Here's a link to the article in question. Since then other companies such as Intel and Microsoft have said similar things, albeit for slightly different markets.

It's actually also a lot to do with the lack of tax breaks for development companies in Ireland. Canada has a system of tax breaks for them and has probably the largest amount of games development of any western company and Britain should be brining in a similar system. It would be a great way of creating more jobs and reducing the deficit in ireland but the politicians here are idiots.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's actually also a lot to do with the lack of tax breaks for development companies in Ireland. Canada has a system of tax breaks for them and has probably the largest amount of games development of any western company and Britain should be brining in a similar system. It would be a great way of creating more jobs and reducing the deficit in ireland but the politicians here are idiots.

That's certainly a factor but not the factor unfortunately. The Canadian tax breaks are a relatively new draw factor to the country and long before them there was a thriving games industry in the UK which never spilled over here, quite simply for the reasons I outlined above.

Now, should the situation change (which it is in the process of doing I should add) then the tax breaks will certainly be required in order to guarantee investment from outside publishers but in the meantime, until there is a significant pool of talent at home, we're going to be waiting.

super_furry

Gotta say I think European release dates are great nowadays. The longest you're usually waiting on a major release is a week and it's a far cry from the 16bit and 32bit days when you could be waiting anything up to a year for localisation.

Syferus

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's actually also a lot to do with the lack of tax breaks for development companies in Ireland. Canada has a system of tax breaks for them and has probably the largest amount of games development of any western company and Britain should be brining in a similar system. It would be a great way of creating more jobs and reducing the deficit in ireland but the politicians here are idiots.

Apart from, err, the US?

Canada has in many ways done a great job in punching above its weight in the games industry, though.

titan18

I'd presume the 3 day delay is to do with distributing over Europe being harder to distribute than America.

Retr0gamer

Syferus wrote: »

Apart from, err, the US?

I'd actually say it's bigger than the US. It's got EA and Ubisoft the two biggest third party publishers and a rake of other smaller developers and off shoots from the likes of Rockstar and Sony taking advantage of the tax breaks. Name some companies bigger than those based primarily in the US? You won't be able to.

mayordenis

It's a mish mash of things,

localisation - People think only the game/manual have to be localised but really all the marketing and PR and well everything public part of the product has to be localised for the plethora of countries in the EU.

Consumer Trends - I won't claim to know too much about this but no question consumer trends point companies in the direction of when to cash in their chips.

Reception - now and then releasing in a single territory is necessary, obviously not with the big titles like Gears of War etc. but it has it's benefits.

As someone points out above disribution - getting the games across many borders boats, planes, trains, lorries, yada yada.

And then you have to look at the developer - Epic in this case - where are they from? Yup, America. How does anyone have the right to dictate where a company launches a product?

Fair, it doesn't make sense but even if it did it doesn't enter the equation.

Syferus

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd actually say it's bigger than the US. It's got EA and Ubisoft the two biggest third party publishers and a rake of other smaller developers and off shoots from the likes of Rockstar and Sony taking advantage of the tax breaks. Name some companies bigger than those based primarily in the US? You won't be able to.

Sony Computer Entertainment America, Microsoft, Nintendo of America and Apple? While both Sony and Nintendo are Japanese companies, their American headquarters are hubs for their US development teams/partners and their publishing arms are massive.

That's not even mentioning Activision Blizzard, Take 2, THQ, Valve or companies like Epic Games and nVIDIA who play a huge role in the games industry on the technological side, be it software or hardware.

EA is actually headquartered in Redwood, California - it only has development offices in Canada while the majority of its development done in the US in Redwood itself and studios like EA Tiburon in Orlando. Ubisoft is even headquartered in Paris, although a majority of its prolific development is coming from the Montreal and Toronto studios.

On that, Activision Blizzard has been bigger than EA for years now and Ubisoft's status as third largest third party publisher is quite murky as well - THQ's net income was around four times that of Ubisoft's last year and Take 2 regularly out-performs it as well.

I honestly thought you had just forgot about the US because - without trying to sound condescending - there is no argument that the brain trust and centre of the video games industry lays in US. Ask yourself where a majority of the games industry press is based, the west coast of the US. It's for a simple logistical reason. It was only last year that Canada was shown to have became the third biggest player in the industry behind Japan and the US - which had long since displaced Japan at the top of the pile.

Oh and yes, I do know a little too much about the industry!

Helix

titan18 wrote: »

I'd presume the 3 day delay is to do with distributing over Europe being harder to distribute than America.

no, thats just when stuff is released in euope. movies and music are the same

over here everything is out on a tuesday

seraphimvc

tbh tho,everything is slower to gets into europe :pac: especially when we are talking about technology, i am not sure it is because of the strict regulation of this kinda stuffs or european has the conservation attitude or whatever other reason, europe = old school:P

Retr0gamer

When it comes to technology it's slower to launch in europe because initial launch shipments are so small that it's best to launch in one territory. It's also less risky for the company launching their product because if it bombs in the launch territories then it will bomb in europe more than likely so they can cut their losses without investing in a european launch.

VinLieger

Unless its over a month difference its not really that bad, dont mind having to wait an extra few days and in some cases its beneficial, example red dead redemption where the americans were plagued with 2-3 specific online bugs that were patched in time for our release

sean corcoran

Helix wrote: »

gears 3 is a worldwide simu-release

no its not. tuesday in america, thursday in japan and friday in europe

Helix

sean corcoran wrote: »

no its not. tuesday in america, thursday in japan and friday in europe

no, its not

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

VinLieger

Helix wrote: »

no, its not

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

nope

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/13/gears-of-war-3-dated-april-5-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fjoystiq+%28Joystiq%29

sean corcoran

Helix wrote: »

no, its not

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

i dont want to argue with you but you are wrong, cliff blezinsky said tuesday america thursday japan and friday europe

VinLieger wrote: »

nope

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/13/gears-of-war-3-dated-april-5-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fjoystiq+%28Joystiq%29

thank you, you proved my point

Helix

as i said:

Helix wrote: »

its going to be out the same day everywhere

wait and see

sean corcoran

Helix wrote: »

as i said:

helix im sorry but i trust the lead designer of the game, it was the same way for gears 1 and 2, so im positive it will be the same way.

mayordenis

sean corcoran wrote: »

helix im sorry but i trust the lead designer of the game, it was the same way for gears 1 and 2, so im positive it will be the same way.

No Gears 2 came out everywhere at the same time - I'm pretty sure.

gizmo

mayordenis wrote: »

No Gears 2 came out everywhere at the same time - I'm pretty sure.

Well Gears 1 had the staggered release date, Gears 2 had the same day so who knows with Gears 3. To be honest though, I'd say it's gona be another staggered one based on what Epic have said.

Professey Chin

Couldnt you at least be excited over a good game?

sean corcoran

Ultimate Chin wrote: »

Couldnt you at least be excited over a good game?

i am excited

degrassinoel

Julia Hardy (she's awesome) from gameface had a similar rant about this a few weeks back, unfortunetly i cant find it anywere.. ahh if ye seen it ye'd be nodding in agreement

mayordenis

gizmo wrote: »

Well Gears 1 had the staggered release date, Gears 2 had the same day so who knows with Gears 3. To be honest though, I'd say it's gona be another staggered one based on what Epic have said.

Of course Gears 1 was a staggered release date - nobody new it was going to be as big as it was in the end. The same day thing is only for huge releases, Halo, Call of Duty, Gears etc. I would trust Helix on this.

gizmo

mayordenis wrote: »

Of course Gears 1 was a staggered release date - nobody new it was going to be as big as it was in the end. The same day thing is only for huge releases, Halo, Call of Duty, Gears etc. I would trust Helix on this.

Heh, the idea that both Epic and MS didn't know what they had on their hands in the leadup to its release is quite amusing to be honest.

Anyway, what people seem to forget is that despite the staggered release dates, the actual physical copies will be in European retailers in or around then same time. Anyone who has some mates who work in the game stores will be painfully aware of this unfortunately.