Weekend Reading: Drop the Three Day Delay

I write a lot about video games and, often, I end an article by telling potential players about the platforms on which the titles will appear and about the day when the product will be available on store shelves.

I almost always write down two launch dates, one for North America and the other one for Europe and, almost always, there are different ones for the Japanese market and possibly another for Australia.

I almost always think that the three day delay between North America and Europe is absurd, a left over from a period in the video game industry when physical inventory was crucial and shipping took more time.

Unfortunately the existence of the three day waiting period exists even in this day of cloud computing and digital distribution, meaning that I (and quite a number of other gamers) need to wait for three days to get a new release while the American gamers are happily playing along, talking about their experiences online and posting videos of the way the blockbuster that I do not have looks.

It's, in some ways, a humiliating experience for a gamer who follows the news and knows that there's no real reason behind that practice.

And, worse for developers and for publishers, it means that a lot of fans turn to something like piracy in order to satisfy their need to play the latest and greatest.

Basically companies are claiming that they need to deliver ever more restrictive DRM with releases while they themselves create at least one of the major reasons for its existence.

The best move would be for all big developers (I guess a mix of any three of Sony, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo, Activision and Ubisoft would suffice) to drop the delay, at first when it comes to digitally distributed content, both add-ons and full games, and then move to do the same for physical launches.