Does The Perfect Release Date Exist?

Choosing the perfect release date for your game is an almost impossible task because there are so many factors and unknowns that you can't plan for. However, in this blog we'll explore what you can plan for, the questions that you need to ask yourself and definite dates that you need to avoid to arrive at the best release date for your game.

Of course, the first thing to make sure is that your game is ready for release and you've managed to test it on some people; although AAAs are setting a trend of releasing buggy games, gamer's reactions to this should tell you that this approach is not advisable. Choose a release date that gives you enough time to get your game to a place where you would be happy for people to pay for it.

As we go, you will probably find that you'll be excluding more dates than you include, which is useful as it gives you less choice and will make it easier to decide. At the end, we'll be using data from Data Explorer to help us narrow our search based on what everyone else is doing.

Let's start with the factor that should influence all your decisions; your audience.

Who is Buying Your Game on Launch Day?

If you've been marketing your game on a social media platform, have a website for your game or have a Steam store page collecting wishlists, you'll hopefully have have access to data about who is interested or likely to buy your game, such as what country they live in and their age bracket.

These two characteristics will help you to eliminate a few dates from your pool of possible release dates. The country will give you an idea of any major holidays that you want to avoid or take advantage of.

For example, if the majority of your potential players live in the UK, you might want to avoid a date that's too close to Christmas or New Year as people tend to be busy visiting loved-ones or drinking heavily. Additionally, releasing around mid-year bank holidays, could be a lucrative, but if your audience are likely to be parents, the school holidays might be something to avoid. On the flipside, if your players are 18-25 years old, university holidays could be a great time to release.

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Steam Sales and Festivals

Your Steamworks dashboard is your new best friend and you can use your Events and Deadlines section to narrow down your pool of release dates. Plenty of people advise against launching in a big Steam event¹, and I largely agree with them, except when it comes to Seasonal Sales.

Do You Need to Avoid Seasonal Sales?

To help you answer this question, you'll need to answer the following:

1. Do you want to launch with a discount?
2. Do you want to feature in a Seasonal Sale after launch?

If the answer to the first question is yes, then it is possible for you to feature your recently launched game in a Seasonal Sale by setting your launch discount duration to extend into the sale².

If you don't want to launch with a discount, but you would be interested in your game having a second wind after launch, choose a date that is more than 30 days before a seasonal sale. Launching within 30 days of a seasonal sale will make you ineligible for it².

Use Steam Festivals to Your Advantage

When it comes to festivals, you'll find that there are two types that appear on your Events and Deadlines section; specific themed festivals with a sale element and Next Fest. Lots of other people will advise the same thing as I am; definitely exclude all of the Next Fest dates, but think about the benefits of launching shortly after a Next Fest, especially if you took part.

Themed festivals and their accompanying sales allow you to launch within that festival, which is an excellent opportunity to capture the attention of your specific audience and get in front of them³. So if there is an upcoming themed festival that matches your game and your tags reflect that, it would be sensible to launch in that festival, or just before it.

For every themed festival that doesn't apply to your game, I would exclude those dates from your options. Even if your game is similar or has a similar audience to the theme under the spotlight, your game won't feature in the promotional placements and is more likely to be overlooked than achieve awareness.

AAA Release Dates to Avoid

Many people will tell you to avoid AAA releases at all costs, and if that's what you want to do, it's not that hard. AAA studios release a fraction of the games compared to indie developers every year^4,5. If you had planned on releasing in January 2025, you would only have to avoid the release dates of 8 games.

It's unlikely that you'll have to worry about every AAA release because not every AAA will have the same audience as you and be a direct competitor to your game. As a reminder, there are millions of users on Steam with hugely diverse interests that aren't all anchored to AAA games. Make sure you're clear who your biggest competitors are, because it might be an indie title and not a AAA!

The Best Time to Release a Game

There is mixed advice about the best month of the year and the best day of the week to release a game, some articles suggest that June is a very good option¹, but if that month is so good, why is it one of the quietest months for game releases? There is similar advice that you should release a game on a Tuesday or Wednesday as these are the quietest days for releases, but are they also the quietest days for player volume too?

I would argue that there are valid reasons behind the high volumes of releases around the end of the year and the end of the week. The weather in a lot of countries gets bleaker and days get shorter from October, so people are more likely to be inside their homes, looking for a nice game to fill their evenings after work or when the children are in bed. On a Friday and Saturday, many people are at the end of the working week; they're ready to wind down and have a later evening playing a game if they don't have to get up for work the next day.

In 2024, AAA studios almost exclusively released games on a Friday⁴, and although we often dismiss these corporate giants, their drive for revenue is likely to lead to them choosing the optimal days of the week to capture players to play a new game.

Of course, you should be mindful that there is limited support on a weekend at Valve and you will be less likely to get speedy support if anything goes wrong on a Friday or Saturday⁶. So if you're worried about technical issues, you could release on a Thursday so that you're close enough to the weekend that players are still available to buy and play your game, but it gives you extra time before the weekend to sort any issues.

The best month of the year will ultimately depend on when your game is ready to release, which will be specific to you, but don't forget about your audience - are they likely to be available to buy your game in the month you choose?

TLDR - How to Choose the Best Release Date for Your Game

Exclude or include dates based on your answers to these four questions:

1. What time of year will my game be ready for release?
2. What times of year are potential players likely to be unavailable to buy and play my game?
3. Which of Steam's festivals and sales are relevant and irrelevant for my game?
4. When are my competitors releasing their games?

There is no perfect release date for a game. If your launch day doesn't go to plan, it's not the end of the road for your game! Your marketing shouldn't stop after launch day, it should continue consistently so that you can sign-post potential players towards your game that is ready to play.

References

1. How to Market a Game | What's the best day to release an indie game?
2. Steamworks Documentation | Seasonal Sales
3. Steamworks Documentation | Steam Themed Sale Events
4. Game Oracle's 2024 Report (available to Research tier subscribers)
5. Game Oracle | January 2025 Report (free overview)
6. Pissed Customer | Contact Steam Customer Service