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GTA 5: Do Moving Release Dates Boost Sales?

English: The Rockstar Games logo. Português: O logotipo da Rockstar Games. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Theft Auto 5 is the upcoming gaming title developed by Rockstar Games, set in the . Grand Theft Auto has been a perennial classic and the definitive gaming series for Rockstar Games, creating the modern urban sandbox game and similar gaming titles such as Saint’s Row. The release date for GTA 5 was originally planned at the beginning of the year in spring 2013, but was pushed back to September 17. Does moving release dates have any noticeable effect on the sales of video games?

One of the most important effects of moving release dates is to afford the studio and developers of the game more time to put finishing touches on the game. Two examples of games being rushed by developers, possibly in order to meet release dates by studios, are Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. In this case, moving the release date may appease anxious fans for a short amount of time, but the quality of the game may not hold up to expectations. This is particularly obvious in Mass Effect 3, where the lackluster ending stood out as an enormous drawback to the game and may even lower sales of future games planned in the Mass Effect universe. There was a huge divergence in the quality of the ending compared to the quality of the rest of the game that prompted many gamers to deduce that the ending to the game was rushed. This is particularly damaging to a game which has built up to the ending in the trilogy only to disappoint the gamers who have played through Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to see the ending. The fiasco created by the ending even caused the studio to release another ending, although the damage may be permanent.

Otherwise, even late in the development cycle in a game, there are important stages for the game to go through such as bug testing, so that any potential bugs or glitches may be fixed before release. This is important particularly in AAA titles such as GTA 5, where fans have a great deal of expectations about the realism and immersion of the game itself, which can be broken by an abundance of bugs. In this case, it may be better for the studio to delay the release date instead of releasing a mediocre, or even worse, an unfinished product. It is particularly worthwhile for Rockstar Games to take their time considering that GTA 5 is one of their most important titles; it is of paramount importance for them to preserve the quality of the game rather than rush any part of the game’s release.

Finally, there is indication that moving the release date of games later can actually boost sales. If the delaying of the release date can result in a better product, the game can sell both on release and from pre-orders as well down the road, if it becomes critically acclaimed as a quality AAA game. One of the breakout success stories in gaming this year was Bioshock Infinite, released by Irrational Games which had its release date moved to February 26, 2013 from October 16, 2012. However, the ending of the game was almost universally regarded as one of the best in AAA titles, and it is conceivable that more games will be sold because of the higher quality.

Saturday Roundup

Misc

: Image via Wikipedia

Last weekend, we had 2 birthday parties. In two weeks we are having our biggest party of the year. I’m going to try to get our yard done this weekend, while my wife and a couple of her friends decorate inside the house. October is still nuts at Casa del Myhouse.

Today, I found out that I accidentally made a huge extra payment to my car. $650 too much. I thought I had deleted the auto-payment series from the bank’s site, but I only deleted September’s payment. Hopefully, I can find enough slack in the bills to make up the difference, instead of hitting the emergency fund.

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Lifehacker posted on Squaretrade. I can tell you that, without a doubt, I’ll never again get an extended warranty in-store.

Negotiating Superstar

Finance, Parenting, Recipe

Recently my son asked me for some money.

This isn’t rare.

He asks me for money on a regular basis. He’s kind of greedy some days.

This time, however, he asked what he can do to earn some money. Now, since I live in Minnesota and have the dog and we had the sixth snowiest winter ever this year, all my dogs little shoe-bombs have been buried for the last six months. It started snowing in early November and as of this writing, on March 25, I still see two inches of snow covering every thing. Last week, we had a thaw and got to see the grass. We also got to see the dog’s business all over the yard.

I told him that I would give him $10 to clean up the yard. He asked if a friend could help. I said yes. Then he asked if they would have to split the money or if I would be paying them $10 each. I said that I’d be getting the same amount of work done, so they should split the $10.

He didn’t like the plan, so he negotiated his way up to getting seven dollars each. Originally, I was planning to pay $20, but got talked down by a friend. I’d still be willing to pay $20. What I’m trying to do is encourage him to start negotiating. I am a lousy negotiator. I want my kids to have better financial skills than I do. I want them to grow up knowing how to negotiate and being comfortable negotiating. That will make him a better financial adult.

So I encourage him. Sometimes I offer a lowball number and if he gets so upset walks away I ask him why he didn’t give a counter-offer. If he just accepts a number that’s way too low, or if his grandma offers him a shiny nickel to mow her yard, I tell him no. I tell him to reject it and offer something that he feels is more in line with what he would actually be doing.

Now, if I’m going to keep up these lessons I need to work on my negotiating skills too, so this is also a self-improvement game.

How do you teach a kid to negotiate? What resources are out there to teach yourself?

Financial Blogger Conference

Finance, Misc

Three days, 800 miles, and 18 sessions later, I am back from the Financial Blogger Conference.

Here’s the breakdown of my spending:

The conference itself: $67

Breakfast on Friday: $8

Lunch on Friday: $19

Lunch on Sunday: $10

Gas: About $160

Hotel: $182

Tips to the bartender: About $10

That brings the total to $456. The hotel cost is really an opportunity cost, because my rewards card will be reimbursing from my accrued miles. Actual out-of-pocket cost: $274.

What did that money get me?

First, I got to meet a lot of the bloggers I read every day, including a lot of my fellow Yakezie members. That’s invaluable.

I got to spend three days meeting other bloggers, and learning how they operate. I got to hear how they manage Twitter, how often they post, what they do, and how they do it. Phenomenally valuable.

I got to spend 2 days learning better ways to do this whole blogging thing, by listening to some of the biggest names in the personal finance blogging world. That’s a value that you’ll have to judge for yourselves over the next few months as Live Real, Now evolves.

From a purely financial perspective, was this a good spend? Probably not. I spent $274 to get intangibles that won’t pay my bills or put food on the table. There is certainly an argument to be made that this was a waste of money. However, I strongly believe that those intangibles will prove far more valuable than any other way I could have spent that money. Using simple math, I may have wasted that money. Looking at the long-term value, it was definitely worth the time and money.

I will be going back next year.

How come my back hurts?

Business, Finance, Relationships

My favorite book series is the Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. It’s a good sword-and-sorcery, good-versus-evil fantasy.

But I’m not here to talk about that series. Rather, I’m going to talk about one particular scene in book 6, Faith of the Fallen.

There’s a scene where Richard, the protagonist, ends up in a socialist workers’ paradise, where the government controls distribution and everybody is starving. Jobs are hard to come by, because everything is unionized and unions control access to work. That’s a non-accidental parallel to every country that has embrace socialist principles, or even leans that way. Go open a business with employees in France, I dare you.

So Richard goes out of his way to help someone with no expectation of reward. This person then offers to vouch for him at the union meeting, effectively offering him a job.

This is the conversation that follows:

Nicci shook her head in disgust. “Ordinary people don’t have your luck, Richard. Ordinary people suffer and struggle while your luck gets you into a job.”

“If it was luck,” Richard asked, “then how come my back hurts?”

If it was luck, how come my back hurts?

Seneca, a 2000-year-dead Roman philosopher said, “Luck is where the crossroads of opportunity and preparation meet.”

I won’t lie, I’ve got a pretty cushy job. I make decent money, I work from home, I love my company’s mission, and I kind of fell into the job.

By fell into, I mean:

I started teaching myself to program computers when I was 7.
I worked in a collection agency collecting on defaulted student loans to put myself through college while I had a baby at home.
When I graduated, I went out of my way to help anyone I could, which positioned me for a promotion, getting my first programming job. The first one is the hardest.
I spent 3 years studying the online marketing aspects of what I’m doing, with no promise of a payoff.
I launched a side business in the same industry as the company I work for.
I built a relationship with an author to include his books in the classes I teach. He happened to move to the company I’m with.
I offered advice–for free, on a regular basis–on certain aspects of his business and his responsibilities with this company.
He offered me a job.

That’s 25 years and tens of thousands of dollars spent earning my luck. How come my back hurts?

I have a friend on disability. He has a couple of partially-shattered vertebrae in his back, but he keeps pushing off the corrective surgery because the payments would stop after he heals. He refuses to get a regular job, because his payments would stop. He lives on $400 per month and whatever he can hustle for cash, and he will make just that until the day he dies. And he complains about his bad luck.

His back literally hurts, but not metaphorically. His bad luck is the product of deliberately holding himself down to keep that free check flowing.

I have another friend who made some bad decisions young. Some years ago, he decided that was over. He took custody of his kid and started a business that rode the housing bubble. When the bubble popped, so did his business. Instead of whining about his luck, he worked his way into an entry-level banking job.

He put in long (long!) hours, bending over backwards to help his customers and coworkers, and managed a few promotions, far earlier than normal. His coworkers whined about it. He’s so lucky. If it was luck, why does his back hurt?

We make our own luck.

If you bust your ass, working hard and helping people–your coworkers, your customers, your friends, your neighbors–and you are willing to seize an opportunity when it appears, you will get ahead. When you do, the people around you who do the bare minimum, who refuse–or are afraid–to seize an opportunity, who always ask what’s in it for them, they will will whine about your luck.

When they do, you will get to ask, “If it was luck, how come my back hurts?”

30 Day Project – February

Life, Relationships

My 30 Day Project for February is to be able to do 100 push-ups in a single set. The most common reaction when I talk about it? “You’re nuts!”

Is it ambitious to the point of being aggressive? You bet. 30 Day Projects aren’t supposed to be easy. This is going to be a difficult painful month.

On the other hand, I have five fingers. How many people do you know able to do 100 pushups? I don’t know any. In 4 weeks, I will know one.

What have I done to prepare? Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. I am starting this from scratch.

Here’s my plan:

At this moment, I can d0 20 pushups. I am going to start with 5 sets of 2/3 of my max(14) with a one minute break in between sets . That will happen in the morning and before bed. Each session will involve more pushups. I need to add about 3 to a set each day to get to 100 by the end of the month.

Now, it’s entirely possible that I won’t be able to manage 5 sets of 14, or that my progression is unmanageable. That’s ok. I refuse to test my endurance on this, and I’ve done no research. I’m flexible and willing to adjust my plan to match reality.

Aggressive and painful. Wish me luck.

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