Gearheads of War

I've read and heard a lot about delays on big titles at the end of 2009.  A lot of it is centered around discussion about the fact that gaming publishers are getting smart and realizing that the holiday time frame is often a crazy time to release a game unless it's a sure-fire Triple-A hit like a Call of Duty or Halo or some kind of sequel to an already proven franchise.

But I would argue that might not be the case at all.  I don't think publishers suddenly woke up and realized that they would have a better game if they put off Splinter Cell: Conviction or BioShock 2 or MAG.  Sure I think most games would benefit from plenty of time in the cooker sort of speak, but game publishers are in this for one reason and one reason alone and that's to make money.

And that's the reason why I think we're seeing so many games put off until 2010 right now.  Not because they're letting the games have more time to be better.  You don't think Take Two could use a huge boost in revenues right about now?  I think because of the uncertain economy and the fact that many gamers, including people like myself, have decided to be a lot more choosy about what games to plunk down $60 for because of the state of the economy.  Well that and the fact that I realize that Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2, NHL 10 and of course, Modern Warfare 2 will be monopolizing all of my time this upcoming holiday season.  As a matter of fact, I anticipate MW 2 to probably be the one game that I will continue to come back to until we see a Gears 3 down the road.  

So if anything, there will be other games that I will decide to rent, but that's not what a publisher wants.  So many of them are making the prudent decision in terms of their investments and putting them off until early 2010.  If they're even smarter and want to make more money, I would put them off even more.  Instead of crowding the space with games at the beginning of the year, going against time sucks like Mass Effect 2 and surefire million sellers like God of War 3, I'd even push them back to June, July and August when there is typically little to choose from (look at the release schedule - it's a wasteland right now).  That's how you're going to drop a major bomb on the industry rather than trying to shove Singularity in with ME 2, BioShock 2 and God of War 3.  

Then again, I imagine they already know that.