Staff Roundtable: When Is the Best Time To Release a Sports Game?

[ChaseB]

Quote: Originally Posted by Layoneil

why do people think there is going to be "extra time"? that extra time will only happen once for the first time they change the date, the development cycle is still ultimately just going to be a year long for every game after that. old games had less bugs because the newer consoles are more difficult to develop for. pro-games should come out when the first preseason game starts, just as the athletes need some time to get ready for the year so do the developers and most gamers. i'm also mostly a franchise guy who will restart after the trade deadline.

Yeah, I don't get why some of the writers were talking about development time either.

[speedtrucker]

for NCAA I like the early release, the college game does not have the roster changes that pro leagues do with free agency and trading. there is not a big reason to restart dynasties like there is for pro leagues, in NBA2k11 I started my gaming with "My Player" where the rosters were not as important and then I went to the "Association" mode later but even then I had to restart my "Association" after the trade deadline but even then it felt disjointed because my Mavs roster was going to feel weird either way. there was no way to adjust properly for the season changes, excluding injuries which I feel are happenstance.

Pro games need to be as close to the start of a season as possible, NCAA can/should stay a bit further out for both 1. added playing time before Madden sales affect it & 2. less/rare roster turnover following the spring drills.

[goalieump413]

When's the best time? When it's finished! I know release day patches are the norm now, but all too often, the devs miss some key issues even after the release day patch. Recall that NCAA11 was plagued by the reverse pump fake glitch?

[walkman02]

If NCAA Football released around the same time as Madden I would never buy it! Plus there's nothing to do during the summer so I'm like screw It I'll Buy NCAA Football!

[CujoMatty]

Definetly at sone point before the season. Case in point OOTP 12. I had pre ordered it in February and it just came out end of June. I'm still in to it and think it's a great game but I know I would have been into it even more in April.

[Ikki]

I see no mention of FIFA. The best-selling sports game is released a solid month AFTER most european leagues kick off (almost 2 months after the start of the french league).

[mrclutch]

The earlier the better for NCAA. I prefer Madden mainly because I'm much more of a pro fan than college. I can usually get a good couple months in before Madden comes out and NCAA goes on the shelf until bowl season.

I think the bigger the gap in release dates for the 2 games would probally max the sales to other guys like me who prefer one to the other.