Fallout New Vegas director Josh Sawyer has suggested that Diablo 2 actually helped boost sales of his first D&D role-playing game, Icewind Dale, by releasing on the same day.
According to Wikipedia, Diablo 2 was released on June 28, while Icewind Dale was released a day later on June 29, but the feeling remains that the two games were released very, very close to each other. And in an interview with Edge Magazine, Sawyer acknowledged the perception that an RPG like Icewind Dale from a relatively small (at the time) studio released at the same time as a giant sequel like Diablo 2 wouldn't be good for the former's sales. .
“Icewind Dale launched on the same day as Diablo 2, which sounds like it would be catastrophically bad, but it actually did pretty well,” Sawyer said, suggesting the opposite: that the timing actually benefited Icewind Dale. “There were lines and lines of people to get Diablo 2, but a lot of them liked isometric and fantasy games, so they were like, 'Icewind Dale, what is this? Yeah, we'll pick that up too.'”
Nowadays, video game release dates are changed frequently to avoid clashing with other releases. Probably the most prominent example I can think of as of late is Larian moving around the release plans for Baldur's Gate 3 to avoid colliding with Starfield. Last year, THQ Nordic delayed survival horror game Alone in the Dark to 2023 entirely because “too many amazing games” were released that year, and boy, wasn't it?
Now do what you want and go play. best role playing games out there.