With Monster Hunter Wilds launching tomorrow, some companies are giving their employees a day off - at least in Japan
We've made a lot of progress as a society, but there's still room for improvement. Giving Fridays off should be a no-brainer for companies – so we can kick off the weekend with some uninterrupted gaming!
Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken a day off for a game release! Sounds kind of ridiculous, or even preposterous to some, but big game launches have caused chaos before: people skipping school, ditching work, the whole deal. That’s why some companies in Japan are actually encouraging employees to take a paid day off on Friday, June 28th, when Monster Hunter Wilds drops, to avoid a sudden outbreak of ‘mystery illnesses’ at work.
How Japan learned to handle massive game launches
Ever wondered why Japanese games usually release on Fridays instead of the industry-standard Thursdays? Well… let’s rewind to 1988. It was a chilly Wednesday morning in February, but that didn’t stop thousands of Japanese students and adults from lining up for Dragon Quest III.
Dragon Quest III; Developer: Chunsoft
Massive crowds formed outside stores, some waiting overnight. Things got so wild that fights broke out, and some unlucky fans even had their copies stolen. On top of that, scalpers jumped in, reselling the game at crazy prices. This was one of the first times a game launch caused total chaos – and Japan took notice.
After the Dragon Quest III incident, the Japanese government and game companies tried to stop similar disruption in future. While there wasn’t an official law banning weekday releases, the government strongly encouraged publishers to avoid major titles on weekdays.
So, big names like Enix (now Square Enix) and Capcom started releasing games on weekends, mostly on Saturdays. Over time, this practice shifted to Fridays, which became the standard release day for Japanese games. That’s why titles like Tekken 8, Astro Bot, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and now Dragon Quest III Remake all hit shelves at the end of the workweek.
Source: Reddit
These days, we don’t have to rush to the store and wait in long lines to grab a game, and even with Friday releases, plenty of us still take the day off to start playing first thing in the morning. Since Monster Hunter is huge in Japan, some companies decided to just skip the whole ‘mystery absences’ problem and straight-up gave employees a paid day off – so they can fully enjoy the nationwide phenomenon.
