: They want to market the game properly. There are lead times involved.
: I had the same knee-jerk "WTF?" reaction when we first heard about
: it...but the more I thought about it the better it sounded. This way, Euro
: gamers will know a game called Stubbs the Zombie exists, and so will the
: stores that sell video games. I know the wait is a drag for people who are
: already clued in, but there are many more potential Stubbs fans who've
: never heard about him. THQ is doing the right thing for the game.
I'm curious though, why wasn't the lead-in over there the same as that over here? Was the decision to use THQ as a distributer/publisher made just recently, and no previous marketing had been done over there?
I also don't quite understand why, given that the game is finished, it wouldn't be available for their local retailers to order immediately, so that as the marketing picks up in that area the game will start being carried and sold as demand picks up? Is there any actual financial benefit to having a big build-up of interest and then a sudden mass-purchasing, versus the same number of purchases spread out over time? I imagine getting it into a few earlier adopters' hands quicker would actually benefit the marketing by adding a word-of-mouth element to it as well.
And yeah, thanks for coming by to explain this kind of stuff. You rock Matt. Always have.