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Is January a "bad month" in the game industry?

deriks

deriks

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If you look at the movie industry, there is January to bad movies. If you look at the music industry, only major names do good at January. In gaming there's a lot of crap too, and only a few exceptions exists, like DmC and Dead Space 2.

So, it's safe to say that January is a "fuck you" to gaming?
That's right, Jay
 
Typically I used to feel like it was June - if you wanted to dump a game out with minimal press attention you'd pop it out in the immediate run up to or aftermath of E3 and it'd just quietly pass with far less review attention etc. It's also the height of summer in most of the world, so is warmer, less people spending time indoors, etc. That's been changing though, especially as games in general have pushed away from "release in September-November or don't bother".
 
This January will have Yakuza 0, Resident Evil 7 and the Hitman physical release, for starters.

Safe to say Fuck you it's January is not a game thing nowadays.
 
Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy VII released in January.

So no, it's clearly a month reserved for some of the best games.
 
It's definitely a dead period until the last week or so. For me personally I view the "dead" period of new releases for retail video games to be from mid-December to last week or so of January and July to last week or so of August. Of course its not as bad as it was back in the day since indie games being digitally distributed can come out at any time and help fill in the gaps.
 
January being the worst month for film is right in theory if you live in Chicago/NYC/LA but it's the month where a lot of the award show fodder gets released wide. February is more apt.

For games, I think the summer in general is underwhelming. This year in particular was a general wasteland for 3 months. I can almost always find something I enjoy every month but summer can be leaaaaan.
 
I don't really thinks so. Like you mentioned there was Dead Space 2, for others there was Mass Effect 2, for Canadians there was Fire Emblem Awakening, this year there was The Witness. There was also Resident Evil 4, Bayonetta, and Minish Cap.

ScaryShark said:
January being the worst month for film is right in theory if you live in Chicago/NYC/LA but it's the month where a lot of the award show fodder gets released wide.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was thinking this too.
 
January in general is usually the shit month for all entertainment. But it's also why capcom was hitting a lot of success releasing during that month. Since they basically would be unopposed.

There's always exceptions of course, but it's never guaranteed. Like some other months.
 
it's not even accurate in movies
it's a good RLM joke but this past January we got Anomalisa, The Revenant, Carol, Ip Man 3, The Lady in the Van, Kung Fu Panda 3, Band of Robbers, Little Men, Monster Hunt, Mountain Men, Aferim!, Colliding Dreams...

all certified fresh, many in the 90's, several being big box office draws.

again, it's fine for a joke, but please don't confuse it for a real thing
 
January has had some good releases in the past few years on PC, 2014 had the Metal Gear Rising PC release and this year we had the Dragon's Dogma DA.
 
Yeah it's usually a dead month in terms of video games but we did get The Witness this year in January so that's good enough for me
 
January/February is typically reserved for Q4 launches that miss their release window and JPN releases that are more concerned with end of fiscal year (April) than holiday season. The real low period to me is still May-July, which to me is "FUCK YOU, IT'S CONVENTION SEASON".

It's a real fast and loose analysis though and there will always be outliers to prove otherwise. There are plenty of titles that have had pretty great success because they launch in that particular window and steal the spotlight. And of course now with Early Access and indiegeddon we are seeing non-AAA titles launch year round so... I dunno, I guess this was more relevant like 5-10 years ago?
 
Mass Effect 2, Bayonetta, Life is Strange, The Witness, Ni No Kuni.

January can actually be a great month for relatively big releases that do something different and would therefore be trampled by the blockbuster franchise dross that drowns out everything in the holiday season.
 
people are still spending their holiday money... still a fine time to release a game. i mean, it wouldn't be wise to release something like CoD or whatever but it's not a graveyard like the film industry

especially in years of a new console release. people generally buy a handful of software months following a new hardware purchase
 
Only hack frauds buy games in January

I don't think the rep necessarily applies for games- there's such a wide range and variety of games releasing all the time lately that January doesn't mean bad quality anymore
 
January comes after Christmas a time when people have spent a lot of money on presents so they buy less to save money.
 
Historically it has been.

Stuff started to change around the beginning of last generation, where more games got delayed and came out early in the following year as COD took over and no one wanted to compete against it.

But when I was younger, one of the things that sucked about the holiday season ending was that it meant like fucking nothing good was going to come out for the next few months. Practically everything seemed like it got squeezed into August through December
 
Kuraudo said:
Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy VII released in January.
Click to expand...

Does this count? Final Fantasy VII didn't release outside of Japan in January.

TheSpaceBetween said:
Same (The Witness). Resident Evil 4 came out in January as well. So the answer is a definite no.
Click to expand...

So a few games across almost two decades means that January isn't the month that has the least significant releases overall?

edit: Resident Evil 2 released in January too.
 
Someone once wrote a post on here explaining why there aren't a lot of releases in January, even though you could target people who got money on Christmas.

According to that, most retail chains do their yearly inventory at the end of January and since they want to minimize their excess stock, they play it safe and don't order as many copies of media that releases in January than they would in other months.
 
Oxenfree, Darkest Dungeon, The Witness, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Besiege, Infinifactory, Consortium, Nidhogg, Octodad, The Banner Saga, The Floor Is Jelly

January seems like a good month to me
 
It's generally one of the weakest months for games it feels like, along with December. There have been lots of good games released in December and January but compared to other months it's less active.
 
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