f13.net

Something I've wondered about for a long time and that I remembered with GTA V. Why is it that most/many games are released at the start of the week? Why is the official release date for GTA V for example Tuesday the 17th and not a Thursday or Friday?

I always felt that it would be better if such games released before the weekend because that would give people the chance to directly dive into the game instead of a Monday or Tuesday which meant that most people had to wait for the weekend to actually have a chance to play the game or worse that they could change their mind and not buy it by the time the weekend (and the reviews) roll around.

Since it's so seldomly done though and even high profile launches like Diablo 3 don't do it I figured that there must be a reason for why it isn't more  prevalent to for example launch on a Thursday or Friday instead.

With GTA V it might also be that they didn't want to launch on a Friday the 13th but generally speaking is there a reason for that?

Games release on Tuesday.  No more questions.  The Game Gods have spoken.

Albums and VHS/DVDs have released on tuesdays forever. It's just a thing. 

I think it has to do with charting and sales monitoring.  Most charts that track sales and stuff (be it for video games, CDs, DVDs, or pretty much any electronic media) come out on Monday, so the industry ships it stuff on Tuesday to allow a full week of exposure.

Or something.

Unless you're Nintendo, who seem to launch on Sundays for some reason.  And the occasional Friday, too.  

I managed a record store in the early 90s and it was the same (Tuesdays) then for music.

This was the explanation I heard ages ago.  Also that with the advent of electronic monitoring, digital release and sales listing it's beginning to shift, but the B&M portion of things still has shipments set up for Tuesdays so that's the driving date in the US.