This is a request for a Peer Review submission.
I would love to see a Release Date option during the submission process that can either be set to "Immediate" or a specific date.

Releasing games for a specific event, such as a holiday, is a real hair-pulling experience for developers for several reasons:
1. Despite your best efforts (playtesting, etc.), you can't GUARANTEE your submission will pass.  A hidden bug could be found, someone may have failed for the wrong reason, etc.
2. A failure is an automatic 7 day suspension and an additional (average) 9 days for a possible next release date.
3. If it passes, you can't determine the release date because the system is entirely volountary so your submission might release in 3 days or 30 days.
4. If it releases even as little as one day late, sales would (most likely) be drastically affected, perhaps even non-existant.
5. A missed release date might mean waiting an ENTIRE YEAR to reattempt a release.

For these reasons, a developer must make a difficult guesstimate as to when to submit his submission in order to compensate for all these factors.  As you can see by the timespans mentioned above, this makes trying to release a date specific submission even within a certain week a real challenge.

I think a Release Date option could be a huge benefit to us developers and even to the gaming community since we would be able to release specific games well ahead of time, and rest comfortably knowing that it will premiere as a New Release on the Date we specified.  Developers benefit by releasing on time and at the time that's most beneficial to their submission.  Microsoft benefits when the developers benefit.  Gaming community benefits from being presented with certain games that are released at appropriate times, and by not having to miss out on a game that could have been released but failed to pass Peer Review in time and now might be shelved for a whole year or indefinitely.



Who all is in favor of this request?  If so, please go to the Connect site and vote for "Release Date option added to Peer Review process".
https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=506922&SiteID=226

Please file this on Connect and have people vote on it there. It's much cleaner than the forums and ties right in with the XNA team's internal bug tracking. For help on Connect: http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/414.aspx

WolRon:

Who all is in favor of this request?

I'm betting anyone with a Haloween game in review right now... well look at that ;-)

Suggestion added to the Connect site.

Please anyone in favor of this feature request, please go to the Connect site and vote for "Release Date option added to Peer Review process".
https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=506922&SiteID=226

Please post the link next time, so it's easier for us to find it. :)
Here it is: https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=506922&SiteID=226

And I think this is a great idea. Voted!

This is a good ideas...

But I fill this many moons ago on Connect too and the issue was closed and never to be heard after :-(.

So I am sure MS have it somewhere in their notes, but dunno if they are interested in doing this or if the logistics for them is more problematic.

EDIT :

Here is my post talking about the ideas

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/27941/155558.aspx#155558

Here is my post with the connect issue

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/27941/155692.aspx#155692

intruder:

But I fill this many moons ago on Connect too and the issue was closed and never to be heard after :-(.

Well MS moved the issue to the internal system so it's in the queue. The idea is quite important from a marketing POV so this new connect issue will remind them that this is something we should have ;)

Cheers,
Pino

I wholeheartedly agree, and the only "limit" I can think of is that you'd have to specify a date after the maximum time for peer review, which is (I think) 28 days.  I would also like to see this limited to games which pass peer review first time, but I'm a meanie ;0)

Regards,
Mike

Maybe this would be a nice feature for people with good reputation...

DrMistry:

 I would also like to see this limited to games which pass peer review first time, but I'm a meanie ;0)

The ZMan:

Maybe this would be a nice feature for people with good reputation...

Not a bad idea.

The ZMan:

Maybe this would be a nice feature for people with good reputation...

Works for me. :)

There is one sure-fire way: Just release early! Ship your halloween game in August. Ship your christmas game in October.

You may note that Halo 3 ODST shipped in September, and pretty much all other Christmas season games ship in October or November. This means that, even if there is a last-minute SNAFU, there is time to recover. And if everything is quick, well, there's some extra time for you to market and build up demand!

You are missing the point jwatte.  For example, in my case, I DONT WANT to release my game early.  I want it to appear on the New Releases list within a specific timeframe.  There is no way to do that with the current setup, hence the need for such a feature.

Halo 3 is NOT a Christmas game.  Eh?  And we're not talking about games sitting on store shelves where they can sit in the front row all of the time to be seen.  We're talking about games that appear on XBox Live Indie Games New Releases and they will quickly fall to the back of the list if you release them early.

WolRon:

For example, in my case, I DONT WANT to release my game early.

I'd actually argue that you really do. For instance, the games/apps that made it into the Xbox LIVE Halloween features were, with a couple exceptions, all on the service at least a few weeks if not months ago. If you release right around Halloween it does make your game/app more timely, but you miss the chance to get some really great promotion from Microsoft. See here: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/news/halloween2009

Nick Gravelyn:

WolRon:

For example, in my case, I DONT WANT to release my game early.

I'd actually argue that you really do.

So, if I finish my Fourth of July Celebration game today, and I want to find out if it passes Peer Review, so I can MAKE SURE it releases at a time I desire (whether it be a few days, weeks, or months early, as you argue),       how do I verify that it passes review without actually sending it to the marketplace in October?

Jim Perry:

The ZMan:

Maybe this would be a nice feature for people with good reputation...

Works for me. :)

Ye, sure: the Evil MVPs with their 10K+ reputations sure like this - although in this case I have to admit that it is a nice idea :)

jwatte:

There is one sure-fire way: Just release early! Ship your halloween game in August. Ship your christmas game in October.

You may note that Halo 3 ODST shipped in September, and pretty much all other Christmas season games ship in October or November. This means that, even if there is a last-minute SNAFU, there is time to recover. And if everything is quick, well, there's some extra time for you to market and build up demand!

Those were my thoughts exactly when I noticed "
Johnny Platform Saves Chrimbo!" in playtest. I thought to myself, someone finally realizes that you need to be completely polished months ahead of the event. Anyone that has been around here a while, will know that spending zero time in playtest and then putting a game in peer review one week before it needs to be released, is being unrealistic.

I'm voting for it, but not getting my hopes up. Would help immeasurably in terms of letting the press and public know when the game will be available, rather than having to send out a release saying "Err, it went live at 3am yesterday".

WolRon:

Nick Gravelyn:

WolRon:

For example, in my case, I DONT WANT to release my game early.

I'd actually argue that you really do.

So, if I finish my Fourth of July Celebration game today, and I want to find out if it passes Peer Review, so I can MAKE SURE it releases at a time I desire (whether it be a few days, weeks, or months early, as you argue),       how do I verify that it passes review without actually sending it to the marketplace in October?

Use playtesting extensively. Get it in there now and work with people to figure out any fail points.

One further point - if we did get such a lovely feature, by my understanding at present, we'd have something a lot of other distribution channels don't have. So we'll all have to be even mroe super-grateful than usual :)

Here's something interesting that I thought of...

If we can control release dates with any degree of accuracy, since it is known that games that are released before the weekend (such as on Friday) have higher downloads and thus a better chance of getting on the most popular list, won't most every game release on Friday?

Deej:

One further point - if we did get such a lovely feature, by my understanding at present, we'd have something a lot of other distribution channels don't have. So we'll all have to be even mroe super-grateful than usual :)

Definitely. :) We just have to hope that MS won't decide this feature falls under the "another feature that XBLA has, to differentiate itself from XBLIG". (which IMHO wouldn't make much sense, but if true I can understand their reasoning)

Guys, feel free to carry on discussing this isue but there's little point voting on the recent connect case. It's a well known concern already and is a duplicate of a previous connect case (as was described earlier)

So what good is it to discuss it here?

Jim Perry:

So what good is it to discuss it here?

Well I'm not stopping anyone :)

I guess it's possible that the discussion may provoke another idea that may not be a dupe

Pheel:

Jim Perry:

So what good is it to discuss it here?

Well I'm not stopping anyone :)

I guess it's possible that the discussion may provoke another idea that may not be a dupe