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[Servant Corps]

Ugh, me too. Its like fanboys, only in reverse. EA makes quite a few good games, but they just over hype everything which makes most of everything a let down.

Wait, what? There's a reason why marketing exists (to create a market for shitty games?). People spend their whole careers, getting paid to generate hype. If one has an issue with EA Marketing, you can forward your grievances to the EA Marketing Department.

They might not hear your mail arrive as they'll be too busy rubbing themselves with wads of cash.

Is this true? EA haters tend to take this to be true, that people buy games for the hype as opposed to it being any good. I want to test this however.

So, let take two games, both exact clones of each other, like Pong. Let us create "hype" for one game around it. We would then see how many people would download the game with hype as opposed to the game without hype. For this to work, I have to know what "hype" is. And we have to differnate hype from lies. But if we can get this to work, then we can determine if marketing really does have an effect.

Come to hink of it, I have a freeware game called "Fall of the Three Kingdoms". Maybe I can use that to test the hyping experiment.

We could also look at reviews for the game as well to determine if people like the reviews or not. We could see if the reviews for the games are more positive if there is more hype within that game, or if people actually hate the game if they are exposed to hype.

[Davion]

Does there really need to be an experiment to figure out whether hype works or not?

Pretty sure 'hype' or 'promotion' is a cornerstone of marketing and if it didn't work the people that have jobs that depend on sales wouldn't be using it.

[Outcast Orange]

Hype doesn't work on a small scale anyways.
The chances of anybody here producing much hype for anything are low.
Toady's the only one capable.

[Muz]

Heh, hype works only if a game is good enough. The producers jumping around and yelling the game is good is not hype.. it's only if some customers do it that it's hype.

It works. There's something called the Blair Witch Project, which was very similar to what you're trying to do here. I'm sure you won't find a low budget movie like that selling nearly half as well.

Besides, games only sell through hype. How the hell do you know if a game is good or not before you buy it? Only by looking at screenshots, videos, feature lists, devlogs. Reviews are also (anti)hype.

[UristMcGunsmith]

Heh, hype works only if a game is good enough.

Al: I don't think so, Tim.

Seriously, what the hell made you think that?

I would hardly call many of the games being released nowadays that good.

Many people (Mostly teenagers, not to be offensive, but I have a point, let me get to it.) think that nay-sayers of games like the Halo series, L4D, Gears of war, and other popular games are just trying to act tough or be different. But as us older gamers grow older we see these games for what they are. Copies, rehashing the same scenarios over and over again. Newer gamers under the age of 18 see these types of games for the first or second time and it's utterly mind blowing for them. But for us older people, it's just the same crap with new features.

Not to mention games are just way too freaking easy and short nowadays. Most games you can beat in under 20 hours. Most games normal mode is way too easy, and you have to play the extreme modes for challenge.

It took me 112 hours to beat Final Fantasy 1 on my PS1. And my god did it feel good. I got drunk and hung out with friends because it was such an occasion. But beating a game now gives me the same exact feeling I have after a normal movie. Enjoyed it, would watch it again, but nothing spectacular.

And I happen to think some games just make a story, then a very linear gameplay experience THEN the developers throw in a bunch of weird non necessary features. Like quicktime events, or mini games (Not that there's anything wrong with those things, but sometimes it's obvious that they are filler for a lack luster game.)

I do have to hand one thing to new games. They have some amazing stories and environments. They are capable of doing many things that weren't capable of games made pre 2002.  However I have yet to find a game that gives me chills like the opening scene from StarCraft Brood War.

And do not get me wrong, I do not feel this way about ALL new games. Some of them are great and are on the same tier as old games, it's just that the way that the industry has evolved has ruined a lot of games that had great potential. Now well known companies (Such as EA, THQ, Activision, ETC...) KNOW that if they market a game enough with flashy enough commercials and enough half promises people WILL buy the game EVERY time.

End rant.

[bjlong]

Ehh... only sorta agree with you there, Urist.

Definitely, games are targeting the "casual hardcore" crowd, which want to be able to just feel awesome without too much work. The casual crowd, who want much less work and don't like the tropes used in video games, is left out (save for the Wii, but that's a can of worms that doesn't need opening right now,) and the hardcore crowd, who want to see something new and exciting and would like a little work in their game, generally gets left out.

And yes, games are very genre-oriented. A shooter will always have you as a one man army badass, capable of getting shot multiple times in the chest and being fine after some bandages and thirty seconds; an RPG will always have you as a spunky young hero who's about to uncover some sort of evil secrets and maybe some romance too; etc.

What you're missing is that these games play well. They take genre elements and, though they don't revolutionize them, they definitely turn them into a playable game--a worthwhile game. Sure, GoW and Halo are the same thing with different guns and voice-actors, but they both use a winning formula, use it well, and mix it up enough that the player feels like s/he's accomplishing something. It's not a great strategy, but it's a good strategy.

These are the games that hype works on. Look at the hype machine for Fable 2--They tried to get some word out, but the game wasn't really that good, it messed with some pretty key mechanics in unfathomable ways, and more. The word didn't get out because noone knew what was happening, and the developers, instead of releasing more hype-worthy footage, complained that noone understood them.

Versus GoW 1, which had the standard 3rd person shooter elements plus some better cover controls. Showing the gameplay with the cover was immediately intuitive, immediately interesting, and got everyone into a froth about how this was the "future" of gaming--more realistic combat and cover.

And, though they're both genre, GoW 1 is much higher quality (in terms of gameplay experience) than Fable 2.

So, to sum up: hype is created when a game is "good enough" and marketed well. Sure, it might not be very good by your standards, but it doesn't have to be--just "good enough."

[Outcast Orange]

I'd also like to say that the grenade system and body position systems in Call of Duty were very intuitive.
Also, the producers of that game are gods of multi-player map making.

I could play on Crash, Crossfire, Overgrown, and Backlot a hundred times and still feel excited about it.
Halo was a very new experience.
It had strange new physics, never before seen weapons, and a very interesting "balance".
I'm not a huge fan of gears of war, but there's something about a bunch of near invincible slabs of meat
running around that makes great gameplay.
And like mentioned above, the cover system was completely fresh.
Genre games have the potential to be worth while.
You just have to give them a chance,
instead of brushing them off as just another game in a genre.

[UristMcGunsmith]

Listen guys, re read my post. I don't every say the games are unplayable. I also say many of them are great. I just say many of them are just rehashes and many of them have tons of very noticeable filler.

You can't assume I don't think most games don't play well. I really do enjoy a lot of modern games. Right now I'm wasting nights playing Borderlands and RS Vegas 2. I also think Majesty 2 is very creative and only copies a few winning elements from the Warcraft series.

You have to understand that yes, a winning formula isn't a bad thing. But when you literally take the same scenario another game had, up the graphics, and replace a few names, you aren't a game worth playing.

Honestly it sounds like you thought I was bashing modern games because I described every game you love or something. Not saying that's the case, but it sure sounds that way.

[bjlong]

Sorry, I was trying to get the point across that these rehashes need to achieve some level of novelty and quality for hype to stick. Personally, I hate GoW, it's just the only example I can think of off the top of my head.

[Alexhans]

as with every other industry... being creative is hard... it's easier to do something that has already succeeded.  Less risks.

Plus... there's a lot of outsiders to the gaming world that eventually buy stuff for what they see.  Graphics. 

We need to stop people from overestimating the importance of graphics in a game. 

Look at the new mount & Blade expansion for example, instead of adding new gameplay features (that even some mods have added with great success) they're going go for awesome graphics with cloth movement, add thousands of polygons to horses and people, add better lightning, etc, etc...

Don't you think it would've been cooler to have better and more varied systems for sieges?  Or other GAMEPLAY tweaks?  In the end... this might mean that while we were able to support (with our graphic cards) 200 man engaging battle we will now be able to support less (1/2, 3/4, I don't know... but less) of them.   

At the end of the day... we don't stay for the graphics... we stay for the gameplay.  But to sell... they aim at the graphics...

I suspect hardware producers might have something to do with this this graphics addiction.

This is why we should appreciate Toady so much. 

EDIT: Worst thing is, places like Gamespot and others continue to give bad ratings to the games that are not graphicly mind blowing.

[Outcast Orange]

Gamespot is a joke, just like Fox News.
Avoid those sights.
They're so hellbent on appearances,
their freaking pages take ten minutes to load.

I'd rather ask a toddler for assistance.

[Muz]

Heh, hype works only if a game is good enough.

Seriously, what the hell made you think that?

I didn't say it has to be good, just good enough. You need some element that makes it enjoyable. As we all know, when you try to hype something that isn't that good, it always backfires.

Halo has a lot of hype. It's not a bad game, but because of hype, plenty of people hate it.

Guitar Hero is an excellent, enjoyable game. But again, because of hype and fanboys who can play 100% Dragonforce on Expert, a lot of people hate it.


The only way you could hype something up is if you can already make it look good. Frankly, if you have a typical RPGMaker game or a Tetris clone, it's not going to make a good experiment.

But most of the time, hype works. It's better for 10000 people to know of a game, 2000 liking, 4000 people hating it, than to have 100 people know and love it. But that seems to be more in general marketing than "hype".


Hmm.. but then again, there's a point there. I take care of a site for years, and from what I've seen, hype works very well. Some of the "top" games aren't even that fun, just had a thick layer of polish and a strong fan base. Some of the top game makers are people who are known for helping out, or known as active members, but don't even make very good games. For every top game on the site, I bet you could find another unknown game that is more fun.

[Psyco Jelly]

I like GoW 2, if nothing more than it gives me a reason to hang around with friends. Hoard mode was a pretty good idea, but it had been done before. I don't own an XboX, I just play it with my friends. I hated halo 3 and was never excited about, and Fable 2 kept me entertained for the three hours it took to beat it.

I like a lot of the games that haven't been hyped, like Okami and Mercury Meltdown. I own a Wii, so I just buy stuff like the old super mario games and final fantasy (awesome game, BTW). I don't really get excited about anything, but my friends seem to be consumed by hype.

It no doubt has a positive effect on sales, but companies that generate hype for mediocre games make themselves look bad in front of people who see the game for what it is. Spore left me saying:

"Is that the best you can do?"