A lot of people get very excited about a lot of things.
The next Marvel film, the next Rockstar game, the next episode of The Great British Bake-Off.
The minds behind 2019 marketing are extremely good at what they do, demonstrated by the fact by how products are able to stand out against thousands of others. They’re almost too good at their job because of how much ‘hype’ they produce. At least, that’s what some would say.
It is true that there have been examples of mis-marketing in the games industry in terms of portraying false information about a game leading up to its release, leading gamers to purchase a very different game to the one that was trailered to them. No Mans Sky being a prime example of this. This, alongside the fact that E3 has always had one or two trailers looking better than the actual game, I would still argue that most experiences are marketed accurately and fairly.
There are lot of gamers out there however who would complain about the marketing of games and how they are seemingly overhyping their next favourite release. Let’s look at some recent examples: Anthem and Fallout 76.
Anthem is the first Bioware game to be released by the main Bioware team since Mass Effect 3 which launched back in 2012. Many played the game, and many enjoyed multiple aspects of it, but after hearing even more have an opinion about it, it does seem that Anthem has not fulfilled the promise it presented to gamers. Nor delivered on being a fine addition to Bioware’s legacy.
Fallout 76 meanwhile was a disaster for Bethesda. Bugs galore (even for a Bethesda game), a story which doesn’t seem to stand-out at all – since nobody has talked about it – and gameplay which seems to be taken right from 2015’s Fallout 4. There’s no question here; anybody who bought that Fallout 76 on launch did not want to play the game in the state that it was intentionally left in.
Both of these games did however produce fine marketing campaigns with spectacular cinematic trailers and gameplay footage, successfully hyping the gaming player base. And let’s be fair here – why shouldn’t they? It’s their job to sell as many copies as they can so that they can keep making more video games. They want people to buy their most recent release so that they can keep making games, and moreover, improve the ones that they have already released.
The problem is that gamers let themselves get too hyped for the next big thing. And I find that in a lot of cases, the opposite occurs for developers which deserve very little to doubt in terms of their previous work. Red Dead Redemption II was something that I believed in ever since that reveal trailer was released upon the world in 2016. I believed in the world that Rockstar could create, and the stories that they could tell. I never doubted them for a second.
And yet, so many people did. So many gamers doubted the developers of arguably the most successful video game of all time: Grand Theft Auto V. But it’s okay, because doubting is normal and natural, and it’s because of games like Anthem and Fallout 76 that we do doubt.
So, it is here where I propose a middle-ground.
Let’s try a new type of thinking towards these types of marketing campaigns. Be excited for video games. Excitement is contagious and having enthusiasm for the release of the next entry in your favourite franchise is great. Life should be about excitement. But don’t imagine for hours the game you’ll be playing, because it’s unlikely that the experience will end up being the game you’re imagining in your head.
Be excited, and be energetic, but don’t be heartbroken when the servers to Sea of Thieves are down (I’m not actually sure if that happened at launch, I’m just trying to make a point). Manage your expectations so that when the next great game does arrive, you enjoy it even more because it came out of the blue. Manage your expectations so that when the whole Fallout 76 problems happen again in another scenario, you don’t lose it. There’s always something else to play, and if you want to send the biggest message you can to developers and publishers, use the most powerful tool at your disposal: your wallet.
Manage your expectations for a game like The Last of Us: Part II, because even if it does end up being another masterpiece, you might enjoy it just that little bit more if you don’t think it’ll be one.
That being said, I have faith it will be.
