[DoctorEldritch]

Hello Legion Gamers!

This week began with a surprise: Hades 2 from Supergiant Games released on Early Access this Monday!

It is already Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam and shapes up to be a great game.

But interestingly, and perhaps a bit counterintuitive, it is because it's so great that it stirred up some troubles. Other developers, especially small indie studio developers, just could not compete with Hades 2 for the spotlight this week, so some projects have a risk of going unnoticed, like the recent Crow Country. At least the devs lightheartedly joked about it:



But some took a more serious stance. Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou wants to support indie developers who may struggle in the shadow of this release:



But most of the sentiment is still positive and humorous. Rivals 2 developer, for example, had this to say:



Still, some developers chose to push their releases back, perhaps one of the most notable examples of that is Evil Empire and their The Rogue Prince of Persia release that was planned for the 14th of May. Here is what they posted:



Still good-hearted about it.

But it does raise a question: should developers of popular and anticipated games that are sure to steal all the spotlight inform in advance that they will release the game on Early Access (just release)? Many studios share their plans and then coordinate to release accordingly so there would not be too many big releases one after the other. But in other cases, they rather surprise everyone like this.



@SKYTRiXSHA, @GoLLuM13 and @j7schultz, you are all in the industry, what do you think?

[SKYTRiXSHA]

I think if a product has good pre-marketing and enough funding to do that, they wont have any issues even if there is other games released same time.
Of course, for Indie or small companies if they can, pushing release date back for a bit might be helpful.

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch I'm not in the industry but I know a thing or two about it 👀
I can tell that some games have an aura that is so big that going against them in the same release window would be like a commercial suicide, you have names like GTA or Zelda but Hades is also one of them.
But obviously marketing is so important, that without it we can easily miss little gems.
So I guess those little indies should communicate a lot and postpone if they are on the same window because medias will produce like 5 articles a day only for one big name and right now it will probably be Hades 2

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by GoLLuM13

@DoctorEldritch I'm not in the industry but I know a thing or two about it 👀

Being able to beta test is "in the industry" enough for me 😅

I hear that after Hades 2 release some developers were suggesting something like introducing a bylaw like that where it would be...I don't know, good manners... or ethical business practice... when developers announce such releases in advance. So people seem to have the same idea as you on this. Which makes sense, but would make it not possible to do a "surprise marketing" strategy.

[DoctorEldritch]

It seems that Hades 2 is doing very well for itself, it's even in second place in Steam during the last week, losing only to Counter-Strike 2. Even Halldivers 2 and Apex Legends were left in the dust.

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by GoLLuM13

So I guess those little indies should communicate a lot and postpone if they are on the same window because medias will produce like 5 articles a day only for one big name and right now it will probably be Hades 2

Despite how big Hades 2 is and how much attention it is getting, developer's prognosis is that it will not leave Early Access this year. I wonder if the final release will have more (because it's ready) or less (because the novelty factor wore off) of an impact.