| Set On Stun |

vroom anyone?

releasing me now is sabotage!

With the release of Assassin’s Creed 2 and Left for Dead 2 closing out the big releases from E3 are we pretty much done with all the big releases for 2009? Are we staring down the face of the of the winter slump with a bunch of less than stellar games and maybe a few occasional gems until the spring? Well yes and no. While many people write off December in the gaming calendar as  a month of lame releases, in the last couple of years this has not been the case.

Sure, Dirt 2, isn’t going go have the ravenous appeal that LFD2, MW2 and AC2 had but it’s sill a good game. Pandemic’s Saboteur is yet another title that looks to be a standout that will be sure to please many folks but will  it get any attention being released in the middle of December amidst the big pushes to sell console bundles, and big hits from earlier this year? Have the marketing machines basically packed up for the year until the spring when the circle of life to promote new games and gear begins anew again?

It’s been said before that the  reason for the slump in the witter is that once all the big releases have come out by Thanksgiving that well, people will be busy investing their gaming hours in playing all these titles. Who has time for new stuff? And therein lies the irony of it. The time when people have the most opportunity to game (winter break, too cold to go outside, seasonal gloom) is the time that publishers could release a few more titles to take us into the new year.

Unfortunately for a lot of games that come out after Thanksgiving they get lost in the holiday blur of parents and people looking for whatever “that game” is to buy for someone and it’s usually something already released. So while Saboteur may be a good game will anyone know or for that matter care enough about it enough to make it  success? By then all the black Friday money is gone and what’s left over is for extra holiday spending, trips, food, other stuff.

But you know what? If a developer and publisher wanted to, they could release something say beginning of December and still make it a hot ticket item. It’s just that most don’t and that’s too bad because there are enough games that have fallen into the December release abyss that were quality games that didn’t get the attention they deserved.  And come January we’re back to thinking about the new games for the new year will be.

Is December a terrible month to release a game? It shouldn’t be — but it is.

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