Releasing around Easter

ck

Anyone have any opinions / experience with releasing around Easter (or that wedding in the UK)? Are we expecting a glut of new product? Will EA dominate with discounting?

I have an app in the book category coming, and am debating a wait until after the holidays.

ck

Bump

jonmulcahy

I can't think of anything. there might be a push of sales from some of the bigger companies like around christmas or when the ipad 2 came out, but I kinda doubt that.

joshcal

i don't know of anything either, all i know of is games like doodlejump and angry birds updating their games and seasonal games to easter themes, which will have a sales drive possibly. christmas is by far the worst time (in my experience) to release a game, i haven't got any experience releasing at easter, but to be on the safe side, i would wait until just after
let me know how it goes
-josh

HoneyTribeStudios

I bet all the big companies have a holiday sale. We have a game nearly finished so will release either before or after but not during!

quantumsheep

shaz said:
I bet all the big companies have a holiday sale. We have a game nearly finished so will release either before or after but not during!

I agree with this assessment!

QS

Asymptoteell

Also, watch out for the easter bunny.

He will kill! kill! you.

Seriously, though, Id suggest doing a YouTube video, unless you feel like you can trust someone enough to email them your file.

ck

Thurs, 28 April now seems to be my day. Post Easter, pre royal wedding. How do y'all feel about a Thurs launch, with submission several weeks ahead of launch (thinking about Apple having plenty of time to look at it for possible feature, but getting a jump on the weekend traffic increase)?

ck

I posted this on my blog at Futurebook recently - would be curious to know if y'all disagree:

"Your rank is not based on how many apps you sold today or yesterday. The best research I’ve seen suggests the ranking formula is 8x the sales of the current day + 5x the sales on the two proceeding days + 2x the sales on initial release date.

"As above, sales rise 20% over the weekend, plus an additional 20% on Sunday. This makes it advantageous to start the weekend in the Top 10.

"Conventional wisdom says a Friday release is ideal. I disagree. Based on the previous two points, a Wednesday release is ideal for a weekend peak."

BackUpAndDown

I'm pretty sure that Christmas is the only holiday that has the potential to boosts sales and thats mainly because of all the Itunes gift cards that are giving as gifts.

heathcc

I think if you have a game that can be "Easter themed" from an art perspective it could be a good way to release a lite or free version to get noticed.

I considered it but realized I would never make the cutoff. The last 5% of a game seems to take 40% of the time.

GamersRejoice

My new game isn't easter themed exactly but it kind of is. I thought it would be great to release it for the holiday but I decided that, well first that I need more time to finish it. Second, that I'll just get lost with some big game easter update or something stupid.