Timing the release of popular content to coincide with the release of competitors' products is a time-honored practice in the game industry. Hell, it's a time-honored practice in ANY industry. You steal some of their thunder in terms of headlines, community buzz, and most importantly, player dollars. In a recent blog post, Relmstein questions
Blizzard's logic in delaying the start of
World of Warcraft's PvP
Season 4 for at least another patch. He
speculates their they're doing this to coincide the start of Season 4 with the release of
Age of Conan. The logic goes, because
Age of Conan is such a PvP focused game, they have to do their best to retain the PvP players they already have with more content aimed in their direction.
As Relmstein points out however, this might be something of a folly on Blizzard's part. It makes it seem like they're just stringing out content to subsist players until
the expansion. Such a narrow band of new content is hardly going to stop players from trying new games, especially ones as high-profile as
Age of Conan (or even
WAR, slightly further down the road). Of course, this is all assuming that we're wise to Blizzard's motives. As one astute commenter pointed out, if Season 4 follows the same scheduling as the last two, it would end in April or May anyway. So who really knows!
