No summer blockbuster video games

MTV News has a story up about how summer is the slowest time of year for video game releases. You'd think January-April would be slowest, since game companies focus so much on the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. But you always see some big releases early in the year that weren't finished in time for the holiday window (Resident Evil 4 and God of War last year, The Godfather and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion this year).

The MTV article talks to people who pin the blame on monthslong European vacations and, strangely, kids being out of school. There's a reason Hollywood releases most of its biggest movies in the summer: no school means lots of free time to be filled with entertainment. I'm not sure why game companies assume the opposite. MTV has one non-anecdotal example: "Valve can track its business by tabulating the number of players competing in its games online and the number of people registering new games online. In both cases, business drops 20 percent in the summer ... bottoming out in July and picking back up when school is back in session."

Seems to me this is a convention that's become tradition more than anything else. With a pretty much empty release slate, a game company could make a killing putting out the only blockbuster of the summer. Which is what EA does with Madden and NCAA, but those usually come out in August. Someone should take a chance in June and July.