Warlords release date

[DrSpike]

I see virtually all sites are giving it as 28th July now. I have some leave coming up around that time and I may as well set it up so I'm off work when it comes out. Can any of the beta testers confirm this date, or if not confirm when the official date will be announced? I am wary of putting too much stock in early estimates.

[Dauphin]

I would expect firm details to be released at ApolyCon if its going to be a soonish release.

[DrSpike]

The top of my screen tells me that's next weekend.

[Nikolai]

I must admit I think releasing the XP right in the middle of summer is a very weird decision, but I guess Civ4 is such a popular game that it can do well even then.

[Solver]

A load of games get released during summer. Heck, the original Civ4 was not during any holidays, in the middle of autumn.

[Nikolai]

But it wasn't released right in the middle of the warmest time of the year, when most people are more out than else in the year.

[DrSpike]

I agree with Nikolai.

And last time the release date was perfectly understandable, being close to Christmas.

[Solver]

Okay, I really wouldn't know. Summer is certainly the time where I would try to spend less time out .

[Locutus]

People don't have an infinite budget for their holiday shopping, or infinite time to play games. If all games were released around Christmas, most people would still only buy maybe 2-3 games max. By spreading their products over the rest of the year publishers sell more across the line, even if sales of individual products are possibly sub-optimal.

[Alexander I]

And since Warlords is really only meant to appeal to people who already have Civ4 (I mean, you could buy Warlrods first, but it would be a little bit pointless... ), I don't think it really matters when they release it, as they already have an intended market. Maybe as long as they don't release it the same time as a superior competing product (eg. if for some strange reason CivV was coming out).

[Solver]

Each expansion also hopes to attract a smaller new market - new people who would buy Civ4 and Warlords. Sure, most Warlords buyers will be current Civ4 owners, but there will be a bunch of new Civ4 owners as well because of Warlords's release.

[DrSpike]

It is uncharacteristically fast for an x-pack though. Usually around 12 months is expected, or longer. This is why I am waiting for confirmation.

[Solver]

An expansion for Battlefield 2 was released around 5 months after the vanilla version. Around 12 months is probably the average figure, yes, but expansions can certainly be made in less time. Of course, an expansion that's done in 6 months is likely to have less content than an epic expansion with a two year development cycle.

[Dauphin]

There may have been better planning options, or it may have just have been that other game development timetables left some slack time to enable this project to start/complete early.

If the game happens to be completed outside a seasonal market boom period they won't delay the release of the product - its hard to believe that you would lose overall sales simply because it came out 3 months ago rather than 2 weeks. All that is really happening is you are making advanced sales.

[Will9]

Gamespot just confirmed a July 24 release date.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationivwarlords/index.html