作者：Carter Dotson

从12月21日起就进入圣诞假期，苹果将关闭iTunes Connect，所有应用直到12月28号才能发布或更新。

这必然意味着12月20日就是2012年最后的一个大发行日，因为在圣诞节以前，大量新iPhones、iPods和iPad将作为礼物送出。

在美国，假期营销战从感恩节前就打响了，而对于应用开发商，这也是一个有利可图的时期，因为许多潜在的新玩家将收到圣诞老人的礼物——iPhone、iPod或iPad。

所以，在这段时期完成游戏的开发商，有理由在圣诞以前和iTunes Connect关闭以前发布新游戏，对吧？

但对于某些开发商，确实应该回避这段时间。特别是独立游戏开发者，最好等到1月初再发布游戏，避开圣诞狂潮。

去年，Vlambeer直到1月初才发布iOS版《Super Crate Box》，尽管这该游戏在12月底就通过审核了。

今年，以制作了《Canabalt》闻名的Adam Saltsman计划将他的新作品《Hundreds》推迟到1月3日才发布。

Saltsman表示：“前几年，大约在假期，销售热潮一开始，大发行商就已经占领应用商店了。”

“我们很肯定，如果今年避开假期，我们的游戏可以产生更大的影响力——尽管很难说这是不是正确的决定。”

当然，因为应用商店的风云变幻，他可能永远也说不准。

他不是唯一持有这种观点的著名独立游戏开发者。

the-blockheads(from pocketgamer)

以制作《Chopper》著称的David Frampton和MajicRank已决定将新游戏《The Blockheads》的发行日推迟至1月10日，当然，截止本文撰稿，该游戏尚未审核。

Frampton表示：“对我来说，圣诞以前发布的竞争压力太大，所以我选择等待。”

“前几年已经证明了，圣诞之后再发售的销量会增加，所以我觉得延迟发布仍有优势。”

“但我觉得在圣诞期间和之后错过一两周的销售增长是值得的，因为之后的淡季有可能增加销量。”

这是真的吗？一年以前，确实是这么回事。据Fiksu报告显示，其追踪到的免费应用日下载量从2011年12月的604万增加到2012年1月的678万。

如果这是真的，那么就表明，新iOS用户与他们的设备仍然处于蜜月期，所以会下载更多应用。当然，在应用商店中，一年就是一生，但圣诞之后仍有成功的先例。

新游戏现在发行等于是和一大堆游戏竞争，如《Anomaly: Warzone Korea》、ZeptoLab的《Pudding Monsters》和《Ravensword: Shadowlands》等。还有更多即将完工的游戏没点到名。

即使所有竞争都推迟得不够后，大发行商也常常在圣诞期间打价格战，比如EA刚刚下调了倍受瞩目的游戏《Need For Speed Most Wanted》，将其价格降至0.99美元，尽管游戏才发布数周。

除了大开发商和发行商，其他开发商基本上不可能冲上排行榜。

这同样有利于开展更广的RP活动。

Saltsman补充道：“我们刚刚获准销售——审核通过之后有一段时间用来公布发行日真是太好了，如果我们在这段时间发行，那么当应用商店在假期关闭时，我们就会被遗忘了——这可不是我们的作风，所以我们的选择很有限。”

David Frampton表示：“……考虑到我拼不过大型发行商、大型开发商的名气和资本，我等到假期热潮冷却、评论/新闻网站的负担不太大时再发行，这是有道理的。”

当你考虑是否在圣诞期间发布游戏时，不只要想到去年的日期，还要看到《Super Crate Box》就是在假日结束时才冲上排行榜前25名这个真相。选择在圣诞树下等待的开发商，可能也会收到圣诞礼物——应用的强劲销售表现。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Stateside: Should developers avoid launching games in time for Christmas?

by Carter Dotson

On December 21st, Apple shuts down iTunes Connect for the Christmas period, ensuring that no more apps can be released or modified until 28 December.

This essentially means that Thursday 20 December is the last big release day of 2012, with the last major Apple feature before Christmas, when undoubtedly plenty of new iPhones, iPods, and iPads will be unwrapped.

In the US, the holiday marketing blitz has been going on since even before Thanksgiving, and for app developers, this is a potentially lucrative time, with plenty of potential new customers coming on board after Santa comes down the chimney.

So, for developers who have finished up their titles around this time period, it would make sense to release their game before Christmas and the shutdown, right?

Well, for some, it actually makes more sense to release afterwards. In particular, several indie developers who want to ensure their games are seen by the world are waiting until early January to avoid the Christmas rush.

Just super

Last year, Vlambeer waited to release its iOS port of Super Crate Box until early January, despite the game being approved in late December.

This year, Adam Saltsman, best known as the creator of Canabalt, has scheduled his new collaboration Hundreds to release on 3 January.

“The last few years, around the holidays, the bigger publishers have kind of dominated the App Store as far as marketing goes,” Saltsman told me.

“We definitely felt like we would make a bigger impact if we avoided that this year – hard to know if that was really the right decision or not though!”

Of course, it’s possible that he never really will know just because the App Store is in constant flux.

The holiday rush

He’s not the only prominent indie developer holding off.

David Frampton, known for the Chopper games and MajicRank, has decided to hold his new game The Blockheads until 10 January, though the game is not yet approved as of writing.

The Blockheads

“For me it was going to be a bit too much of a rush to commit to getting it out before Christmas, so I decided to wait,” said Frampton.

“Previous years have always shown that there is an increased period of sales for a good few months after Christmas, so I will still see some of the advantage from that.

“But to me missing out on the big week or two of increased sales during and immediately after Christmas is worth the trade off for the increased chance of coverage in the quieter period afterwards.”

Is this necessarily true, though? Well, a year ago, there was evidence that it was indeed the case. Fiksu reported that daily downloads for free apps that they tracked increased 6.04 million in December 2011 to 6.78 million in January 2012.

If this holds, then it shows that these new iOS users still in the honeymoon period of their new devices are actually downloading more apps. Granted, a year is an eternity on the App Store, but there is precedent for success to be had in the months afterward.

Big hitters

The current crop of new releases is a high profile bunch to go up against – there’s Anomaly: Warzone Korea, ZeptoLab’s Pudding Monsters, and Ravensword: Shadowlands, to name but a few. And there’s forthcoming titles to worry about, too.

As if all that competition wasn’t off-putting enough, major publishers often drop the prices on their games for the holiday period, including EA, which just dropped a recent high-profile release, Need For Speed Most Wanted to $0.99 only weeks after release.

As such, cracking the charts may be next to impossible for anyone but the biggest of developers and publishers.

Time to think

There’s also the added benefit of allowing for wider PR campaigns.

“We were only approved for sale quite recently – it’s nice to have some lead time after approvals to announce release dates and stuff, and at this point it would have left us in the middle of when the App Store locks down for the holidays, which would limit our options – a kind of fire and forget scenario, which is not really our style,” added Saltsman.

David Frampton says that “…given I am not really in a position to out-jostle the big names and big budgets involved, it makes sense to wait until the dust settles and review/news sites aren’t so overloaded.”

When you consider that, not only last year’s data, but also the fact that Super Crate Box was only able to crack the top 25 once the holiday dust settled, developers who choose not to have their app waiting under the Christmas tree may actually be giving a gift to their app’s potential sales performance.（source：pocketgamer)