I’ve touched on this before and there is no sign the issue is going away so here we go again… Why is “hype” such an issue with the gaming industry? We don’t see pre-release hype similar to the gaming industry’s in any other products we buy. The closest thing I can come up with is occasional hype over upcoming movies, but even then it’s only a fraction of what we see with games and you certainly don’t have the fanboy issues and arguments the gaming industry has to constantly endure.
We have a rather unique situation with gaming that doesn’t happen with books, movies, or music where we’re often exposed to things long before release. Sure, movies have teasers too, but movies rarely (if ever) suffer from the weird oddities that early game footage does… if you’re watching a movie teaser, you don’t have issues where the physics need tweaking or the frame rate is off and the rest of the public’s first impression may sink the project before it’s even done. It seems so risky to trot your unfinished product around for people to form opinions from. I just don’t get it.
Sometimes when I’m especially bored, I’ll sit with a nice rum and Coke and try to figure out what’s so different between movies and games that makes the gaming industry feel they need to expose the public (even if it’s the die-hard gamers and not the general public) to their unfinished work months (or years) before it’s complete. Typically you don’t ever get to see, hear, or read entertainment content early in any industry except gaming. The constant press, demos, exclusives, previews, reviews, etc. are all intended to generate and increase hype for the product they’re targeting.
If we look at hype in more detail (while still keeping this discussion general), it becomes clear that there’s a fine line hype has to walk to be successful. If you try to hype a game and don’t reach some arbitrary minimum level, the hype can actually do more harm than good. What do you consider worse, a game nobody’s heard of and may not care about or a game EVERYBODY’S heard of and nobody cares about? Throwing your product out there for everyone to see can be a really risky move if it’s not worthy of the hype you’re going for.
On the flip side, there is the problem of over-hyping which some marketing folks would probably try to convince you isn’t even possible. Even if your product is top of the line and exceptional in every way, if the hype spirals out of control there may be a situation where expectations exceed possibility. This isn’t specific to the gaming industry by any means. For example, I didn’t see The Dark Knight until about two weeks after it was for sale on DVD and Blu-ray (my schedule just never worked out when it was in the theater.) I had MONTHS of hearing how amazingly stupendously awesome the movie was. When I finally watched it, I sat there as the credits rolled wondering how much more I would’ve enjoyed the same exact movie had I not been told for so long how awesome it was. The movie itself would’ve changed ZERO percent, but my expectations wouldn’t have been raised to such a level that was basically impossible for the film to deliver.
We’re not always subject to exceptional hype but there are usually two to three games per year that I’d say qualify for this category. Right now we’re smack in the middle of the hype tornado for Killzone 2 on the Playstation 3. The game, by most accounts, seems to be the real deal. The problem is, the hype started building so long ago that it seems unrealistically high right now and I can’t help but find myself bracing for the backlash when the game is finally available to the public and people wake up from their hype-induced stupor to label an excellent game “not THAT awesome.” Make no mistake, I’m not implying Killzone 2 won’t be a great game, I’m just saying, a 9.5 or even a 10.0 might seem like a let down if you’re expecting a 14 or 15 (on a ten point scale.) Starving babies won’t have full stomachs and cancer won’t be ancient history. It’s a game. It’s entertainment. It can only be so good.
Have you ever found yourself disappointed in a terrific game because you expected to be MORE blown away with it than you really were? Have you ever thought you would’ve enjoyed a game more had you not had unrealistic expectations about it based from things you’ve read/heard that artificially hyped the game up? What great game did you enjoy less because of the hype than you would have had there not been any hype surrounding it? Sound off.
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Apparently you’ve never heard of Star Wars Fanboys or Trek Fanboys or even Harry Potter and Twilight Fanboys and girls…
My opinion is that movies get WAY more hype.
thats why i like Square-Enix marketing strategy so much, they usually don’t show much until the game is almost ready to be released, giving you only the enough time to build a “safe” hype about it…
i would say gta 4 is a good example of this problem, it’s not a bad game but i got over hyped about it, i thought it would be a bigger, better and next-gen san andreas, yet there were many things that i actually enjoyed missing in gta 4…
I agree, Rothbart.
Hype is dumb. The only things in life worth getting hyped for are Peter Jackson films and J. K. Rowling novels.
That’s IT.
Oh, by the way…
If you read Entertainment Weekly, you learn all kinds of stuff about movies long before they release.
(e.g. The Joker’s pencil trick, the tugboat from Benjamin Button, etc.)
I think the only time hype ruined a game for me was halo 3. I never played the beta, and never actually played the full game until a couple months after it released, and I never really believed it would be THAT amazing. I liked the previous halos, so I thought I’d enjoy halo 3, but when I finally played it, I didn’t think it was that great. I never really thought about it this way, but I think the hype really ruined the game for me. I didn’t see a single review that wasn’t 9.5 or above, and all my friends that had it had told me how great it was, I didn’t think it’d cure cancer or make money fall from the sky, but I really thought it would be an incredible game, but my expectations were set so high by all the hype, it was impossible for the game to deliver.
About a month ago I bought Bioshock, which is a great game and I really like it. However, all the GoTY awards and praise given to it has undoubtedly skewed my perception of this game. Apparently it hasn’t impressed me as much as many other players. It’s impossible for me to tell if I would have a different opinion given less hype, but I’d imagine so.
Good Post! I totally agree. Hype has ruined a lot of experiences that I think I would have otherwised loved. Two excellent examples for me were God of War and Shadow of the Collosus. These games are considered so great, so amazing that when I played them both I was severely disappointed and didn’t even finish either one. On the other hand if either of these games just got average reviews and I somehow got my hands on them I probably would’ve loved them.
In fact many of my favorite games ever were games that I kind of just chanced upon without realizing how great they were (i.e. Snatcher for Sega CD, Landstalker for Genesis, Morrowind for PC, etc.). I had no expectations and I allowed myself to be blown away.
@Lono: Maybe it’s the circles I travel in, but the amount of crap I hear come out of people’s mouth at gaming stores in terms of hype is INSANELY more than anything I ever hear at the video store… nobody says “Forget Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings is where it’s at!”
I mean, yeah, I’m sure if I stumbled into a Harry Potter Fan Club site or a Trekkie site it’s be quite apparent, but “in general”, I see a LOT more polar extreme behavior in gaming… what I like is awesome, what you like is stupid… that kind of stuff. Add in the self-inflating hype on top of that and it’s a mess.
I have an idea…if you don’t like hype you can just NOT READ ABOUT THE GAME. No one is forcing you to check out previews, Op-Ed pieces, or articles about a game. You *choose* to do this so don’t whine about how sick you are of hype if you *choose* to read about hype.
@ Rothbart
Thats what you see because that is what you associate yourself with, shoot this IS a gaming website and people have different likes and dislikes its natural.
I don’t think games are hype more than anything ask someone who has never played video games and I doubt they will know anything about Killzone 2. Meaning you hear it because you are around it…
That said… I am SOOOO HYPED for Killzone 2!!!
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The best EVAR!!!!
i think some of you missed the point… it’s not about being or not being hyped, it’s about being over hyped, excessively hyped, whatever…
and how can you tell how hyped you gonna be before knowing anything about a game? should i just stop visiting game-related websites? maybe i should just stop going outside, who knows whats gonna happen, maybe i get hit by a car… -_-
ummmm fallout 3, i was hereing about it for ages on the red show and watching videos on gametrailers and then i got it for christmas and i have to say i’ve never booted up a game on christmas day and had such a meh experience. come to think of it i haven’t played it more than once or twice including christmas
agreed with Apex8
Fallout 3 …. ugh… got engulfed in hype. I’m kind of disappointed in the game, and I regret losing my $60 on this game.
Yeah I said it… and I went there!
Gears of War 2, I tried not to overhype but even that was overhype. It’s still a great game but thank gods they have actually fixed some of it.
i think bioshock was hyped for being one of the best games of all time and i thought it was, halo 3 too
resident evil 4 was described as the best game of all time by a mile by alot of reviewers and it was by about 5 miles
Id have to say FABLE 2 and Call of duty 4
For me Fallout 3 was way over hyped and I played it for a little while and it was meh. The over-hypedness of the game kind of killed it. However, I have recently gone back to the game after not hearing about it now I think it is pretty awesome.
If you are worried that the over hyping of a game might ruin your experience just wait to buy for a few months until all of the hype has died down and that is when you should make your move on a game
How many times do reviews cloud the judgment of individual minds, they all remain insecure freaks in my eyes.