The Great Unhyped
So, I've been playing Mercenaries lately and aside from being a rather nice game its also got me thinking about some things. Namely, about gaming and the marketing hype machine thats begun to surround it. I submit to you, the gaming community, that Mercenaries is a model of the balance that should exist between marketing a game and the quality of said game. Now, by no means is it the perfect game, in fact I won't even say it's the best one to come out this month. However, it is a game that delivers everything it promised and wasn't shoved continuously down our throats in the months that led up to its release. That is something I believe should be commended and encouraged.
Few people will dispute the statement that 2004 was the best year of this console generation and perhaps even in the history of the hobby. What makes it such an immutable fact? Well, that would be the bevy of high-profile releases of course; HALO 2, DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas, FABLE, World of Warcraft, etc. The untold story of 2004 is that it was also the year that many of these big name games were stained by the taint of excessive hype. The machine that marketed these games reached out to us through every medium (TV, Radio, Magazines, Internets, Movies, etc.) and bombarded us until the sales pitches became subconscious mantras and every new screenshot took the place of the last one burned into our retinas.
Did it work? Yes, apparently it did. HALO 2 sold over 4.2 million copies two weeks after its release, San Andreas 5.1 million copies two months after launch, the list of financial windfalls continues. However, I think the most telling example of a true 'marketing' victory can be seen in the over 375k copies of FABLE that were sold during its first week of release. Why is this so important? Because FABLE was a game whose hype outshone its content.
Who could forget the hype surrounding FABLE from the moment "Project Ego" was unveiled at E3 circa '02 to the day of its release? It seemed like not a day went by that there wasn't a new article in print or online detailing an aspect of the game, some even reaching novel length. Gamers the world over were frothing at the mouth to pick up what was billed as "The Greatest RPG Ever Made," by its official spokesman Peter Molyneux. I myself stood in a line for about five hours waiting for an EB employee to return from his exodus to the distribution center so that I could have my copy those precious few hours early. Sound pathetic? Well, I wasn't alone. In that same store were probably atleast 15 to 20 other people waiting with me.
The car ride back home with FABLE in my possession was a magical journey in which my vivid imagination played out any number of grandiose scenarios that I'd be able to act out with what was sold to me as a holy relic of gaming. The only scenario that I didn't imagine, perhaps wouldn't, was that it would be something less than perfect. Because, rest assured for it to live up to the hype surrounding it, FABLE would have had to be nothing less than perfect. It wasn't. The game I finally played was a good one, but one whose merits were completely overshadowed by its failings. Failings that under any other circumstances, I'd be tempted to look over in favor of its daring design achievements and originality. Therein lies the problem.
FABLE was a commercial success, and in some cases a critical success as well. But, I can't be alone in my assessment if the game is listed as GameSpot's Biggest Disappointment of 2004 and even warranted an apology from Peter Molyneux. What went wrong here? More importantly, what does this mean for the future of gaming?
What went wrong is obvious; the hype was greater than the product being advertised. This isn't such an abnormal occurrence in the world of consumer products, as any number of late night infomercials can attest to. Even in the world of gaming such massive disappointments aren't entirely unheard of. What was different now is that if one looks just below the surface, one can see the hand of a higher power at work with FABLE and as well as on some of the games that suffered a similar fate in the wake of its catastrophic success.
By late 2004, one of the biggest criticisms one could levy against the Xbox was that there were no quality RPGs for the console, and it's a very fair criticism to make. When your strongest RPG, and essentially your only one, is a two year old PC port you've got problems. This is why FABLE's success was important not just to the developers and publishers behind it, but to Microsoft itself. That is probably why the marketing that went into FABLE eclipsed that of other, and I would say equally deserving, titles. The worst part is that it worked, the game turned a substantial profit off the legions of gamers who were blinded by the glamorous facade constructed around it.
To me, this establishes a dangerous precedent. If the industry behind games is reinforced with the idea that a game can be mediocre and still be extremely profitable if the hype generated around it is strong enough, it can only lead to disaster for those of us who enjoy gaming and yearn to see it reach a higher level of artistic achievement. With the costs of developing games that will be competitive in the current marketplace already substantial, one can reasonably deduce that they will be doubly so in the next generation. Thus, the 'overhype' solution should look that much more appealing to the corporate entities.
But, does it have to be this way? Can there not be a happy medium where a game is hyped enough to get it the right amount of exposure, but not so much that it overshadows the game itself? I say there can be, and Mercenaries is the perfect example.
In Mercenaries we have a game that had a good developer pedigree, an admirable showing at E3, and a few TV spots and print ads. You didn't hear what was going on in the development of Mecenaries on a weekly basis, and odds are you didn't want to. Sure, there was the occasional interview with the developers to gauge how far along it was and what we can expect to see in its final form, but at no time during these interviews did any of these developers announce that it would be the greatest of its genre. By the time the game finally released, I had all but forgotten about it. Then, the reviews came pouring in and I was intrigued. The reviewers had nothing but positive things to say about the title, and the few criticisms levied against it seemed largely subjective.
It was enough to make me want to pick up the game, and so I did. As I sat down to play it, I was not confronted with the disappoint that I felt with FABLE, but with an astonished admiration for it. Here was a game that was hyped enough for me to want, yet not so much that when I finally played it I was expecting something more than I got. I'm still playing the game, and from where I am now I can safely say that my experience with it has increased my admiration for it, instead of slowly eroding it.
This is what I want more of; games that are marketed enough to get my attention, but good enough to keep it. Is that so much to ask?
- Will
Few people will dispute the statement that 2004 was the best year of this console generation and perhaps even in the history of the hobby. What makes it such an immutable fact? Well, that would be the bevy of high-profile releases of course; HALO 2, DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas, FABLE, World of Warcraft, etc. The untold story of 2004 is that it was also the year that many of these big name games were stained by the taint of excessive hype. The machine that marketed these games reached out to us through every medium (TV, Radio, Magazines, Internets, Movies, etc.) and bombarded us until the sales pitches became subconscious mantras and every new screenshot took the place of the last one burned into our retinas.
Did it work? Yes, apparently it did. HALO 2 sold over 4.2 million copies two weeks after its release, San Andreas 5.1 million copies two months after launch, the list of financial windfalls continues. However, I think the most telling example of a true 'marketing' victory can be seen in the over 375k copies of FABLE that were sold during its first week of release. Why is this so important? Because FABLE was a game whose hype outshone its content.
Who could forget the hype surrounding FABLE from the moment "Project Ego" was unveiled at E3 circa '02 to the day of its release? It seemed like not a day went by that there wasn't a new article in print or online detailing an aspect of the game, some even reaching novel length. Gamers the world over were frothing at the mouth to pick up what was billed as "The Greatest RPG Ever Made," by its official spokesman Peter Molyneux. I myself stood in a line for about five hours waiting for an EB employee to return from his exodus to the distribution center so that I could have my copy those precious few hours early. Sound pathetic? Well, I wasn't alone. In that same store were probably atleast 15 to 20 other people waiting with me.
The car ride back home with FABLE in my possession was a magical journey in which my vivid imagination played out any number of grandiose scenarios that I'd be able to act out with what was sold to me as a holy relic of gaming. The only scenario that I didn't imagine, perhaps wouldn't, was that it would be something less than perfect. Because, rest assured for it to live up to the hype surrounding it, FABLE would have had to be nothing less than perfect. It wasn't. The game I finally played was a good one, but one whose merits were completely overshadowed by its failings. Failings that under any other circumstances, I'd be tempted to look over in favor of its daring design achievements and originality. Therein lies the problem.
FABLE was a commercial success, and in some cases a critical success as well. But, I can't be alone in my assessment if the game is listed as GameSpot's Biggest Disappointment of 2004 and even warranted an apology from Peter Molyneux. What went wrong here? More importantly, what does this mean for the future of gaming?
What went wrong is obvious; the hype was greater than the product being advertised. This isn't such an abnormal occurrence in the world of consumer products, as any number of late night infomercials can attest to. Even in the world of gaming such massive disappointments aren't entirely unheard of. What was different now is that if one looks just below the surface, one can see the hand of a higher power at work with FABLE and as well as on some of the games that suffered a similar fate in the wake of its catastrophic success.
By late 2004, one of the biggest criticisms one could levy against the Xbox was that there were no quality RPGs for the console, and it's a very fair criticism to make. When your strongest RPG, and essentially your only one, is a two year old PC port you've got problems. This is why FABLE's success was important not just to the developers and publishers behind it, but to Microsoft itself. That is probably why the marketing that went into FABLE eclipsed that of other, and I would say equally deserving, titles. The worst part is that it worked, the game turned a substantial profit off the legions of gamers who were blinded by the glamorous facade constructed around it.
To me, this establishes a dangerous precedent. If the industry behind games is reinforced with the idea that a game can be mediocre and still be extremely profitable if the hype generated around it is strong enough, it can only lead to disaster for those of us who enjoy gaming and yearn to see it reach a higher level of artistic achievement. With the costs of developing games that will be competitive in the current marketplace already substantial, one can reasonably deduce that they will be doubly so in the next generation. Thus, the 'overhype' solution should look that much more appealing to the corporate entities.
But, does it have to be this way? Can there not be a happy medium where a game is hyped enough to get it the right amount of exposure, but not so much that it overshadows the game itself? I say there can be, and Mercenaries is the perfect example.
In Mercenaries we have a game that had a good developer pedigree, an admirable showing at E3, and a few TV spots and print ads. You didn't hear what was going on in the development of Mecenaries on a weekly basis, and odds are you didn't want to. Sure, there was the occasional interview with the developers to gauge how far along it was and what we can expect to see in its final form, but at no time during these interviews did any of these developers announce that it would be the greatest of its genre. By the time the game finally released, I had all but forgotten about it. Then, the reviews came pouring in and I was intrigued. The reviewers had nothing but positive things to say about the title, and the few criticisms levied against it seemed largely subjective.
It was enough to make me want to pick up the game, and so I did. As I sat down to play it, I was not confronted with the disappoint that I felt with FABLE, but with an astonished admiration for it. Here was a game that was hyped enough for me to want, yet not so much that when I finally played it I was expecting something more than I got. I'm still playing the game, and from where I am now I can safely say that my experience with it has increased my admiration for it, instead of slowly eroding it.
This is what I want more of; games that are marketed enough to get my attention, but good enough to keep it. Is that so much to ask?
- Will
posted by idlehours at 10:23 PM
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