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"Why can't I spank my monkey yet?...."

Black and White is out in the states already.
Lionhead is a UK company, run by UK staff and based in the UK.

So how come the States get it 1st?
PS2 Japanese got the games 1st with Sony being Japanese company.
I get that, it seems natural.

But a UK Company releasing the most anticipated game in years on the PC over in the U$A?
Yet I have to wait another week before I can pound my primate?

I know I've been...slightly nonsensical and jokey with monkey spank posts, but I genuinely am champing at the bit to get my hands on B&W.

But, being European, once more we wait in line whilst our Trans-Atlantic customers breeze by waving their goodies at us, chuckling in their stretch-top jeans and easily available products.

Are we too polite as UK gamers?
We seem to anticipate something, get hyped and then
"Ah, yes...sorry about that, another month ok?"
We stand still, put our arms down and "..er...ok. Sorry to bother you then."

This sucks.
Not being able to buy UK based companies games produced in the UK by UK developers sucks.

That is all.

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Bah! Why not release games in all markets at the same time? This way you will earn respect from people for being fair and considerate and showing no favoritism. Might be a good way to make more sales... Of course you'd still have to make a good game...

i wanna spank a monkey!!

MSR was made by a UK comapny, Bizarre Creations in fact, and we got it before the US or Japan.

Blah blah blah

I've ordered it from Amazon and it'll be here Tuesday.

So Molyneux can keep his "Uk, I may live and work there but I don't consider it a significant market" attitude and go spank his own monkey.

That is all

If I were a UK based developer.....

I'd say the USA was my biggest potential market, then Europe, then Japan, hence I would release games in those particular countries in that particular order. (Japan 3rd only because games I would develop just wouldn't compete over there, I might not even consider Japan as a market).

Strategically, this to me seems good business sense, because the dismay of the European gamers is offset more by the profit from the American market.

Its not true that all games are released in America first, Collin Mac Rae was released on our shores before the US got a sniff of it. Although your right the trend is to treat the UK and European market as second best.

I dont believe that the time it takes to convert a game to Pal justifys a long wait for most games, as programmers have become very experienced at getting around this NTSC to PAL porting.
Although in a few cases it may be justified if the PAL game needs to be speeded up due to the conversion slowdown(17%). Tony also has a point, sometimes games are made harder for the UK market, although this is usually only done because the games are slower.

It does seem a little unfair that those blasted Yanks get our home-made games before us, but I suppose it's because they have a bigger market. Still, I don't see why it isn't out today, a lot of people thought that this would be the release date... The last issue of PC Gamer even said 30th March in their review of the fully finished Black & White, so where is it? (Well it might be lying in a box at home or be on it's way from Special Reserve, but I doubt it). I don't want to wait a week for it, that would be ridiculous! I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and never get to play it! (unless it's availiable in any afterlife, or maybe i'll have to go through a whole reincarnation process, BAH!) Still, at least I would be unconscious and not have to wait for the full week if I survived, but I might have to stay in hospital until after it's out so that I would miss valuable playing time. I want this game to dominate my holidays and allow me to alienate my friends and become a recluse to play it, but i'll have a whole week of holidays to get through with only anticipation, not even a demo!!

It took them about 3 years to make didn't it? So what are the chances of there being that many unexpected bugs? And even if there are, there probably wont be time to change all the copies of the game before they are sold to us anyway. So the unexpected bug theorem isn't a good reason for delay.

Now, what's this about a religious holiday? I heard there was no Chicken in the game so why not release it just today? If they released it today people would have spent their money on it this week and by next week people would already have bought the game and so they wouldn't buy another one. But if it's released next week then they risk people buying things like Cossacks this week and not being able to buy Black & White when it comes out because they have already bought a game just recently. Plus people will be buying chocolate eggs, which is another money drainer, so best to get it out ASAP to avoid people buying chocolate instead of it.

Are we too polite? Well, maybe we are, that may be the problem... So I suggest we send a lot of threatening e-mails to Lionhead and try to get them to release the game on Monday instead of Friday (at least) or else we shoot the monkey! And if they don't we'll send the cow back piece by piece (mmm, beef). Well, anyway, I think the problem is that people are used to getting games later, and a lot of the time we don't realise that we have so what ever happened to "What we don't know can't hurt us"? Well there's always the problem of that giant Zebra behind you with a hungry look on it's face...

Bah.

Lionhead can kiss my monkey butt.

"Hi, we're a UK Company. Our creator and boss is from the UK, designed on UK systems.
But, you dont matter, we'd rather release it in other territories because of a religious holiday that nobody cares about and involves rabbits and chocolate (which arent mentioned anywhere in the bible)"

Not fair.

I will now go cry like a big girl and punch my dog in the head.

The most likely cause is waiting for the best opportunity to time the release. In this case (I haven't checked) this could be Easter.

Or it could be the time taken for the PAL conversion of the game, to work with UK televisions.

In the past some UK variants are made more difficult because the players are more demanding.

Also a simultaneous release increases the risk of undiscovered bugs.