Remembers the days when you finished up school for the summer, whether as a kid or perhaps college, and thought “I wonder what’s coming out this summer to enjoy my time off!” and then you look and….nothing. We might have gotten the odd game some years, but for the most part the summer was often a barren wasteland and a time to work on the backlog. Those summers appear to be over.
It used to be that the gaming industry would take a bit of a pause for summer as publishers focused on the conventions such as E3 and Gamescom and got their ducks in a row for the big holiday push while the kids and parents were too busy enjoying the nice weather. Who would want to game when they could be outside at the beach or play sports or go camping just to name a few.
As far as entertainment was considered the summer was all about the "summer blockbuster movies". People were happy to go spend a couple of hours at the movies but gaming was a different story altogether. Maybe a Call Of Duty match or 3 before bed but certainly not a big new game.
That’s not to take away from the games that did come out every summer as there were still games. It’s just that generally speaking they were more niche and smaller titles that likely wern’t on the radar of the masses. And truth be told, I think in some ways we enjoyed it. It gave our wallets a break and let us catch up on the backlog. But everyone loves the excitement of a new game so the odd years we did get a bigger launch in the summer we were of course still quite excited. Those types of summers certainly appear to be in the rear view mirror.
Summer 2024 is all of a week old now and we’ve already seen a steady flow big release in The First Descendant, a major expansion to Final Fantasy 14, Zenless Zone Zero and The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak. By mid July we will be playing the likes of Dungeons Of Hinterberg, Flintlock The Siege Of Dawn and Kunitsu-Gami Path Of The Goddess. Xbox Game Pass alone has 6 day one releases on the service with the 3 previous games listed being among them. EA is bringing back College Football in July as well.
August doesn’t really let up either. Gonna give this a proper list just to show how insane August is.
- Star Wars Bounty Hunter
- Creatures Of Ava
- Black Myth Wukong
- Concord
- World Of Warcraft The War Within
- Visions Of Mana
- Star Wars Outlaws
- Dustborn
- Cat Quest 3
- Madden
Honestly if you just saw that list of releases without a month listed you’d likely think its all the releases from a stacked October not the middle of the summer. This has been going on for a few years now. Baldur’s Gate was a summer game in 2023 for example, but 2024 really seems to be like summers coming out party for being a busy summer.
But Why The Shift?
I don’t really know why the shift happened but there is a couple theories and it might just be a combination of them all. It’s probably easy to point at COVID, and sometimes the easiest answer might just be the answer. Every industry had to shift when it came to COVID and re-think the way things were done. Everyone was stuck inside so why not release more games in the summer.
I think like I had mentioned at the beginning, summer used to be all about going outside, but as technology has become more and more of a staple in our lives, people, and specifically kids, are just as happy to be inside playing a game during their time off school as they are going outside. We can argue whether that’s a good thing or not, but it is a reality in 2024. That’s not to suggest they aren’t going out at all anymore by the way.
Lastly, and I think this may be the biggest reason and the least talked about, the way we consume and market games has changed so much. It used to always be that publishers were focused on the holiday season. That’s when the most money is spent on things like games as parents,grandparents and spouses are looking to buy gifts for Christmas. That meant you wanted your game in high demand by the time Black Friday rolled around. But digital sales has become the main way to sell games now. You can buy a $50 gift card for the platform of choice and give that and your loved one can buy the game they want,whenever they want.
Don’t get me wrong there still is a massive emphasis on the holiday season in the gaming industry. This year, like every year, the September-November stretch is filled with tons of huge games. It’s just not AS necessary. Flintlock for example doesn’t need that prime shelf space anymore to be successful. It can come out in the middle of the summer and (hopefully) do well just like any other time.
If anything there is almost a bit of concern that there is too much coming out in the summer and that a couple of these games might get lost in the shuffle. Again that is something we say in the holiday seasons not summer. Whatever the reasons are, it sure seems like its something that’s here to stay.
