The Luck Of Timing: How ‘Animal Crossing’ Hit The Jackpot
Scheduling a release or event around a particular time to capitalise on some perfect timing can be an art in itself, but we can’t always be so well prepared – there are opportunities that arise in which luck just takes over. In the midst of the current global crisis we have found just such opportunities. Whilst we have found that movies are put on hold or having scheduled releases cancelled all together, others have used the current situation to their benefit.
The first to mention would be streaming services such as Disney+, it had been having a slow roll out across the world of the past few months with some good success primarily due to the anticipation and a strong release title in The Mandalorian – but the platform really hit its stride as it released in other locations during the midst of the lockdown. As more and more of us found ourselves were put into lockdown and self-isolation at home, streaming services such as this were really able to hit their stride.
Another area to see huge benefit from this, however, is gaming – mobile gaming had already been performing extremely well but as we head in to extended lockdown, the numbers of us spending more time on our mobile devices continues to increase, as many look for ways to distract away from the day to day news cycle, Gamstop has casinos that aren’t registered to serve as a distraction whilst our favourite sporting events are cancelled and puzzle games are used to keep our brains engaged. But one of the real success stories here is the release of the new game to hit the Animal Crossing series.
The game had already found big success on previous Nintendo consoles and it had become a bit of a fan favourite – as you find yourself running your own little island village it serves as a nice long distraction – and this only factors in physical sales too as many suspect the digital numbers are much higher. The game sold more copies in its first week than the launch of all previous games in the series together – it also stands as the best selling standalone game on the console. The game will continue to remain a big fan favourite as many will sink countless hours into the game as they have to spend increased amounts of time at home – and we find this extending across gaming as a whole with boxed game sales increasing week on week.
The next big release on the horizon comes on April 10th as many await the release of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake – some have taken delivery of their physical version a little earlier whilst others will wait for the digital versions – but it has to be said that during a time of crisis the world over, these releases are serving as a nice escape from the seemingly endless bad news cycle around us, and for those that have hit the lucky timing, they will receive a big payoff.
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