AT CHRISTMAS WE’RE SURROUNDED BY MORE NINES THAN A NUMBERWANG CONTESTANT. WHY?

A packed holiday slate looks good, but it’s time to change when great games get choked out

So long 2016. Now that the hectic rush of Christmas has faded, there’s finally time to catch up on the backlog of great games that were crammed, stuffing-like, into the tail end of last year.

For the cash-strapped player, it’s a wonderful way to coast through pre-spring blues. But for the teams behind the critically acclaimed games that got trampled in the Black Friday crush (Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2 et al), it must be scant comfort to see your work as a January sales bargain.

This is an industry that thrives on conflict, but it all seems so needlessly competitive. Every year, June and July are a desert for big releases, then suddenly we’re surrounded by more nines than a Numberwang contestant. Why?

The problem is, I suspect, historical. Public holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas) were seen as a good point to sell games because players had time and were more likely to treat themselves or others, while summer became a dead spot as money was siphoned into holidays abroad. But is that true any more? Real wage growth in the UK has been low since the recession, which takes a direct bite out of the spending clout of what’s still gaming’s biggest market: under-30s. The ‘staycation’ is a thing now. I could go on.

FROSTY RECEPTION

So little wonder EA head honcho Andrew Wilson seemed to be issuing statements from atop a throne of unicorn skulls in La La Land when he suggested that Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 could be released at the same time and not compete. They appeal to different audiences, he said, or people who just had to have both. The sales figures suggest otherwise: Battlefield 1 and Skyrim gobbled up last November.

The money you have to spend on entertainment in a month doesn’t multiply each time a game in a different genre is released (I wish it did). But there is a solution: don’t drop so many of the biggest games of the year into the artificial arena of a few short holiday weeks. That used to work, but times, and family finances, have changed. Maybe publishing schedules should shake off their booming ’90s hangovers too.