This thread is somewhat inspired by Vipera's thread about preorders, but kind of went back and forth in my mind since ryukouki's thread about cinematics in games, as well as anytime I think about E3.
We all know what a hype is. We all know that companies (at least the larger ones) have a tendency of playing the audience by making a spectacle about what they're working on. Announcements, teasers, trailers, video footage, press releases, dev interviews, game previews, early access, kickstarter, preorders (with goodies), open betas...and I'm probably missing some*. The very fact that "game journalism" is an industry sort of proves it. And it's...rather big, at least compared to other industries (cooks don't throw out teasers of their next cooking book, movies usually start hyping things up after the movie is done and while I'm not much of a music fan, I doubt there's as much ado about day1 album purchase as there is in gaming).
I have my very subjective view on all of this this, which I'll try to analyse in a second. But for all the negativity there is in the news, the reality is as it is, and it's not without merit. As such, this question. How much do you like it if a game is hyped?
Please try to answer this question truthfully. It's easy to pick the most negative example you can think of and let that cloud your vision, but at least compare it to the good things in the past.
Voted? Okay...from here on out, I won't be trying to stay neutral on the subject.
Personally, I never preordered, only payed early access once (which was but a couple weeks before final release anyway), never backed kickstarter and never got in line for a first day purchase either. Heck, I can still count all the DLC I bought on a single hand. This isn't so much that I'm a cheapskate (which I am...I admit it), but that I'm old enough to remember the times when games had to be finished on release day. There was no excuse then, and IMHO, there isn't an excuse now. So I'll rather wait my purchase until they've ironed out all the bugs. That said game somehow gets much cheaper in the process certainly hasn't convinced me otherwise.
So until recently, I was just a happy 'unimportant' voter on this poll. I certainly was aware that game companies announce their newest franchises sometimes years in advance, but it didn't bother me. At best, I thought something in the lines of 'hmm...I probably should check out an earlier release of that franchise at one point'. And then totally forgetting it because my backlog is already too full as it is (I AM working on it ).
I also remember being annoyed at gamers proclaiming that X or Y is ruining the industry. Not just because "the industry" doesn't refer as much to the gaming industry as to the gaming journalism industry. Yes, some games turn out to be horrible, but that's nothing new. If you want to be the first to play it, you can't complain that independent user reviews haven't had the chance to warn you yet. If you want to talk about the games industry, talk about studios going bankrupt or quality devs quitting their jobs. Talk about innovations that spark interest or novel ideas that actually work. But we don't. And it's getting off-topic in a thread about hype.
Anyway...my opinion sort of started shifting after noticing some games where the quality in levels differ widely. Almost suspiciously to the point where it became apparent which parts where highlighted in promotion materials and which weren't. And some parts tend to drag on longer than needed. Unskippable cutscènes, boring fetch quests or even overly long death animations (ever since rayman origins, I consider each death animation longer than 5 seconds to be 'too long'). At first I didn't know why, but then I heard some enthousiast reviewers say something in the lines of "this is a 40 hour game ". Yeah, congratulations...I'd rather have it cut 10 hours of repetitive dialogue, the character dying or loading screens.
And then there's the cinematics thread I linked to earlier. Cinematics are expensive, immersive (if done right), up the play time and are technically easier to implement (since there's no interaction, bugs are less likely to occur). All good threats. And I've not even mentioned the most important one: great advertisement material. Game trailers that don't show the actual GAME are actually common now.
By itself, I would still be on my 'have your damn hype and leave me alone'-opinion. But seeing how games have big budgets nowadays, it's important to know where all the budget goes. And that's where things start to get important. I lost my source (sorry), but I've heard that on some titles, the budget on hype was as much as on the game itself. And with games like the order 1886 having more cinematics than actual game, I almost feel sorry for the guys who actually have to make the GAME part of the game. I almost dread to think how the credits of that game would look. 50% marketing, 25% cinematics, 10% console, multiplayer and engine optimization, 5% beta testers, 5% level designers and 5% guys who actually make the game, perhaps?
Speaking of hype, I can't really get around E3. I hate all the "it's all about the games! " mentality. Which is plain put not true. It's all about UPCOMING games, yes. But if you want reflection of what the good games of the past where, you'll have to go to award shows or wait 'til Christmas on youtube. And even that only mentions the last year, and rarely any trends beyond that. E3 is one big commercial break. EA probably won't even mention the fact they've closed down maxis (if they do, it's because they have a "similar" game coming up).
I really don't want to bash on hypes in general. Everyone else seems to already do it, and it's an easy target (me: "blah, blah, blah, sim city, blah, blah, colonial marines!" Audience: OMG you are so right!!!!! "). I know there is some good thing to it, but I can only name two of which the first one is abstract to begin with:
-anticipation. It's fun to have something to look forward to. At the very least, it gets you up in the morning.
-full servers. start playing a game years after release, and chances are the servers are either empty or filled with veterans who blow you away (hopefully not verbally, though that tend to happen as well). On launch day, at least you'll find people just as new to the game as you are.
So...there you have it. Any opinions?
*I'm leaving out demo' and shareware, as they are typically released AFTER the product has gone gold. this thread is about everything BEFORE the release date.
We all know what a hype is. We all know that companies (at least the larger ones) have a tendency of playing the audience by making a spectacle about what they're working on. Announcements, teasers, trailers, video footage, press releases, dev interviews, game previews, early access, kickstarter, preorders (with goodies), open betas...and I'm probably missing some*. The very fact that "game journalism" is an industry sort of proves it. And it's...rather big, at least compared to other industries (cooks don't throw out teasers of their next cooking book, movies usually start hyping things up after the movie is done and while I'm not much of a music fan, I doubt there's as much ado about day1 album purchase as there is in gaming).
I have my very subjective view on all of this this, which I'll try to analyse in a second. But for all the negativity there is in the news, the reality is as it is, and it's not without merit. As such, this question. How much do you like it if a game is hyped?
Please try to answer this question truthfully. It's easy to pick the most negative example you can think of and let that cloud your vision, but at least compare it to the good things in the past.
Voted? Okay...from here on out, I won't be trying to stay neutral on the subject.
Personally, I never preordered, only payed early access once (which was but a couple weeks before final release anyway), never backed kickstarter and never got in line for a first day purchase either. Heck, I can still count all the DLC I bought on a single hand. This isn't so much that I'm a cheapskate (which I am...I admit it), but that I'm old enough to remember the times when games had to be finished on release day. There was no excuse then, and IMHO, there isn't an excuse now. So I'll rather wait my purchase until they've ironed out all the bugs. That said game somehow gets much cheaper in the process certainly hasn't convinced me otherwise.
So until recently, I was just a happy 'unimportant' voter on this poll. I certainly was aware that game companies announce their newest franchises sometimes years in advance, but it didn't bother me. At best, I thought something in the lines of 'hmm...I probably should check out an earlier release of that franchise at one point'. And then totally forgetting it because my backlog is already too full as it is (I AM working on it
).I also remember being annoyed at gamers proclaiming that X or Y is ruining the industry. Not just because "the industry" doesn't refer as much to the gaming industry as to the gaming journalism industry. Yes, some games turn out to be horrible, but that's nothing new. If you want to be the first to play it, you can't complain that independent user reviews haven't had the chance to warn you yet. If you want to talk about the games industry, talk about studios going bankrupt or quality devs quitting their jobs. Talk about innovations that spark interest or novel ideas that actually work. But we don't. And it's getting off-topic in a thread about hype.
Anyway...my opinion sort of started shifting after noticing some games where the quality in levels differ widely. Almost suspiciously to the point where it became apparent which parts where highlighted in promotion materials and which weren't. And some parts tend to drag on longer than needed. Unskippable cutscènes, boring fetch quests or even overly long death animations (ever since rayman origins, I consider each death animation longer than 5 seconds to be 'too long'). At first I didn't know why, but then I heard some enthousiast reviewers say something in the lines of "this is a 40 hour game
". Yeah, congratulations...I'd rather have it cut 10 hours of repetitive dialogue, the character dying or loading screens.And then there's the cinematics thread I linked to earlier. Cinematics are expensive, immersive (if done right), up the play time and are technically easier to implement (since there's no interaction, bugs are less likely to occur). All good threats. And I've not even mentioned the most important one: great advertisement material. Game trailers that don't show the actual GAME are actually common now.
By itself, I would still be on my 'have your damn hype and leave me alone'-opinion. But seeing how games have big budgets nowadays, it's important to know where all the budget goes. And that's where things start to get important. I lost my source (sorry), but I've heard that on some titles, the budget on hype was as much as on the game itself. And with games like the order 1886 having more cinematics than actual game, I almost feel sorry for the guys who actually have to make the GAME part of the game. I almost dread to think how the credits of that game would look. 50% marketing, 25% cinematics, 10% console, multiplayer and engine optimization, 5% beta testers, 5% level designers and 5% guys who actually make the game, perhaps?
Speaking of hype, I can't really get around E3. I hate all the "it's all about the games!
" mentality. Which is plain put not true. It's all about UPCOMING games, yes. But if you want reflection of what the good games of the past where, you'll have to go to award shows or wait 'til Christmas on youtube. And even that only mentions the last year, and rarely any trends beyond that. E3 is one big commercial break. EA probably won't even mention the fact they've closed down maxis (if they do, it's because they have a "similar" game coming up).I really don't want to bash on hypes in general. Everyone else seems to already do it, and it's an easy target (me: "blah, blah, blah, sim city, blah, blah, colonial marines!" Audience: OMG you are so right!!!!!
"). I know there is some good thing to it, but I can only name two of which the first one is abstract to begin with:-anticipation. It's fun to have something to look forward to. At the very least, it gets you up in the morning.
-full servers. start playing a game years after release, and chances are the servers are either empty or filled with veterans who blow you away (hopefully not verbally, though that tend to happen as well). On launch day, at least you'll find people just as new to the game as you are.
So...there you have it. Any opinions?
*I'm leaving out demo' and shareware, as they are typically released AFTER the product has gone gold. this thread is about everything BEFORE the release date.
