Yeah. I said it. After years of “certainty” that weekends are, like, totally stupid when it comes to sending out game news, I may have to eat a bit of tasty, tasty crow. Yesterday (Sunday), because of a fortuitous tempest of convenience — I was awake early, my wife and kid were sleeping, and I felt compelled to push this KS campaign as much as possible because we came on a bit late in the process — I sent out news that the stop-motion-animated Armikrog might be coming to Wii U.
On weekdays, when we send our news out to about 1500 media worldwide, we expect open rates of about 25-35%. Then there’s a lot of follow-up and such to make sure that those people who didn’t open it actually check it out. Anyhow… the open rates on a Sunday? About 32%. The news also ended up getting covered by Destructoid, Polygon, Escapist, Joystiq and even international outlets including 3D Juegos and many more.
This isn’t overly scientific — I need to do a lot more investigation and trial — but based on this evidence alone, I’m going to have to rethink the idea of only sending out news on weekdays. Sure, a number of outlets may not see it if they stick to a five-day work week. But it’s obvious that in today’s world, people aren’t solely looking for game news from Monday to Friday.