Currently, Albion Online is planning to be released around August, 1st according to the “Road to Release” thread.
I however think this is a really bad idea because the new World of Warcraft expansion “Legion” will be released August, 30th. So firstly, the multi-million dollar marketing campaign preceding its launch will basically drown out any competition. Additionally you have the “Warcraft” movie in June that will create loads of hype for the franchise and has its eyes set on getting as many mainstream movie-goers into the Warcraft game as possible. So releasing Albion Online right in the middle of Blizzard’s marketing extravaganza will not help Albion at all.
Trying to release the game earlier won’t help either because Blizzard is currently making headlines with Overwatch, Hearthstone, the Tracer controversy, the Nostralrius controversy, the Warcraft movie, and Legion updates, to the point that it is hogging the spotlight from everything else.
So my proposition is that Albion wait until November to release the game, because after 1 month of playing the new expansion there will be a typical player drop-off (Or as previous expansions have shown at least). This time will be the perfect time to try and snatch up those customers who are ‘hung-over’ from the Warcraft hype train.
Now I am not an expert in any way, so I could not tell you exactly when to release the game to maximise profits, but I am pretty sure August, 1st is a really bad release date because you’ll be competing with Blizzard.
I however think this is a really bad idea because the new World of Warcraft expansion “Legion” will be released August, 30th. So firstly, the multi-million dollar marketing campaign preceding its launch will basically drown out any competition. Additionally you have the “Warcraft” movie in June that will create loads of hype for the franchise and has its eyes set on getting as many mainstream movie-goers into the Warcraft game as possible. So releasing Albion Online right in the middle of Blizzard’s marketing extravaganza will not help Albion at all.
Trying to release the game earlier won’t help either because Blizzard is currently making headlines with Overwatch, Hearthstone, the Tracer controversy, the Nostralrius controversy, the Warcraft movie, and Legion updates, to the point that it is hogging the spotlight from everything else.
So my proposition is that Albion wait until November to release the game, because after 1 month of playing the new expansion there will be a typical player drop-off (Or as previous expansions have shown at least). This time will be the perfect time to try and snatch up those customers who are ‘hung-over’ from the Warcraft hype train.
Now I am not an expert in any way, so I could not tell you exactly when to release the game to maximise profits, but I am pretty sure August, 1st is a really bad release date because you’ll be competing with Blizzard.