Isn't it funny? (the hype)

[Agony_Aunt]

We keep seeing it time and time again with games.

Before: Oh, look at this game that is coming out! Look how awesome its going to be. FD could learn a few things from these guys. This is how you make a fun game.

After: Oh, well, that's rubbish. Grindly. Boring. Lacking content. They hyped this up way too much.

And it keeps happening! Why do people keep going round in the same circles? Keep falling for the hype?

NMS, Sea of Thieves, and more. And of course, dare i mention, Star Citizen, which i'm pretty certain will suffer the same if it ever releases.

And then of course the good old "Give it time, its only just released, a few patches will sort it out." and yeah, NMS is apparently making good progress in this area, but still doesn't match the initial hype.

Where is the fault? With the devs? With the gaming press? With the players themselves?

Perhaps all play their part. On the player side, they see what is being developed, and then they let their imaginations run riot. They think "Wow, this is looking good, now if they just add x, y, and z, it will be perfect" and then, in their heads, what they imagine becomes what the game should be, rather than what the devs are aiming for or can actually do.

This also carries over to ED as well. People imagine what else FD could do to make ED better, and then when FD don't do what they have imagined, then its the devs doing wrong (and i'm not saying that the devs don't do wrong and they haven't done things that i wish they hadn't, or done differently - i'm the same as anyone, i've imagined things for ED as well).

 

[Snarfbuckle]

I think it's a mix.

- We as players are passionate about the games we like
- The press enjoy whipping up the hype for views
- The developers want to improve the games but are hampered by time, workload, money or engine/hardware limitations
- Then we have faults in communication between the above parties and chaos ensues
- And finally, we are all gamers that want the game to become BETTER, no matter the game so we dreap, theorycraft and give suggestions

 

[znôrt]

hypers gonna hype.

 

[RobLocksley]

Lacking content.

Go play The Pinball Arcade! I got all tables and it is far from perfect but surely pinball is never hyped

But the people hyping and the other side bashing before a game is even released is silly, but they are silly people - I myself have at times become a bit silly, but I try to minimize it as I get older and more dignified....

 

[Alec Turner]

Personally what I take from it, at least with the space sims, is that familiarity breeds contempt ... i.e. people have forgotten just how awesome ED really is. It's a stunningly sophisticated and well developed game.

Treat ED like you would treat a beautiful woman and never take her for granted!

 

[metatheurgist]

Have to say. I prefer the good old days when the first I heard about a game was when I saw it on the shelf. No hype, no expectations, no preorder, just judge it by what it is on release.

 

[racer1]

Personally what I take from it, at least with the space sims, is that familiarity breeds contempt ... i.e. people have forgotten just how awesome ED really is. It's a stunningly sophisticated and well developed game.

Treat ED like you would treat a beautiful woman and never take her for granted!

Treat em mean keep em keen

There are still limits to what is achievable from technological and resource point of view but marketing teams hint otherwise and people imagine otherwise.

The lack of available space sims is also a factor for ED. There a lot of people who'd rather be playing a very different space game but there isn't one available at the moment.

 

[Chris Simon]

Imagination. People love it. Dreams are always better than reality and our brains are really good at "wouldn't it be great if..."
And we are visual creatures. I think there would never be "hype" about some text adventure. But show us some flashy colours, animation, space, cute animals,... and our brains will just fill in the gaps in the info with the best game we can think of. And then it comes out and our brains are like: "Oh. It's just the things that I saw. They didn't do any of those things I imagined."

Hype is like a chain reaction in the brain. Have you ever noticed, when someone is telling you a joke, your brain is trying to anticipate the pun? As you listen to that joke, your brain is coming up with "ideas" of what the joke is about and how will it end and as the joke progresses, it has more and more material to work with and goes into overdrive of possibilities. Then the pun comes and if it is something your brain didn't expect, it just goes bananans. Laughter is something between an allergic reaction to puns and your brain trying to vent all the energy it wasted on imagining things.
Hype is like that, only the pun never comes...

 

[Rob At Work]

People are generally gullible and we all (secretly) believe in fairy tales, want world peace and perfection

 

[amigacooke]

I don't know about hype, but a few of the features mentioned in the KickStarter campaign, like planets with atmosphere and being able to walk around our ships and space stations (and ship damage models) would be nice.

 

[Alec Turner]

"Oh. It's just the things that I saw. They didn't do any of those things I imagined."

I really like that - you totally nailed what hype is.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Imagination > Reality.

 

[Zetta]

I feel that kickstarter/crowdfunding and early access projects run by people on the less ethical end of the spectrum have all contributed to this, they will pretty much say anything to get funds and then you have people who are fans defending their actions and hyping their "lies". Molyneaux admitted to being guilty of saying whatever just to push them over the KS finish line when he was crowdfunding Godus.

 

[Chris Simon]

I feel that kickstarter/crowdfunding and early access projects run by people on the less ethical end of the spectrum have all contributed to this, they will pretty much say anything to get funds and then you have people who are fans defending their actions and hyping their "lies". Molyneaux admitted to being guilty of saying whatever just to push them over the KS finish line when he was crowdfunding Godus.

KS yeah, probably. Whole crowdfunding business went to the dogs. People are now crowdfunding car repairs and dinners with girlfriends for crying out loud.

But I personally think that Early Access is actually a really good tool for fighting the hype. In most cases, at least, if done right.

 

[Backer42]

Where is the fault?

It's not a fault. It's marketing.

With the devs?

They want to earn money.

With the gaming press?

Doesn't exist. It's just marketing outlets.

With the players themselves?

It's just viral marketing.

Game development is expensive and games need to sell a lot to compensate. So there is a huge marketing push with each release to trick you into buying something, even if you don't like it. Not everything might look like advertisement to you, but is still plain old marketing to reach even you wherever you are. It goes as far as greasy indie devs sending out PNs via game forums to get you into buying something from Steam Early Access.

You can clearly tell how the whole madness immediately stops one week after release, when literally nobody talks about the newest fad anymore. This is because the marketing budget has been spent and the funding to that specific hype is cut. All the buzz immediately dies, because nobody really cared.

tl;dr: The hype - It's all artificial created with millions of advertisement money.

 

[Jenner]

As has been said, it's a mixture of all the above. Marketers love hype because it drives units. Consumers love hype because we love to anticipate and fill-in-the-blanks with our imaginations. Also we love new and shiny toys.

It's not just a gaming phenomenon. As with so much in life it's the anticipation of a thing that is often more exciting than actually receiving the thing. (It's actually funny to see my own daughter who is seven figure this out for herself.)

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

One day FC Schalke will win the championship. You'll see! And then I go: "Told you so!"

Boy, I can't wait to see that day! It'll be GLORIOUS!

 

[Jenner]

If consumers wouldn't be so stupid we wouldn't have that sort of impudent advertising and as a side effect a lot less lies on earth. But that goes down even to why our democracy doesn't really work and you can see it all over the world: the majority is plain daft. Always, no exception. How I would wish this would be some sarcastic comedian exaggeration - I'm afraid it's not... it's not "the big nobs", it's you, you and you.

Me?

[big grin]

 

[MTBFritz]

with a steady stream of newborns every day you also have new gamers breaking into the hobby or making the hype experience for the very first time that you might be a veteran to already. I do believe that people learn from past mistakes (apart from a select few individuals who are prone to hyping in general) but every year you ll have newcomers who yet have to make those experiences and are blue-eyed, naive, gullibe you-name-it.

Also learning is a process and can take quite a while depending on the material and the individual. For me learning about hype and the immediate regret/disappointment linked to it was something I did gradually. After your first let-down you might tell yourself "this time it ll be different" or "not with these guys, they know what they are doing" etc. Depending on how active you are (me for example, I hardly follow new releases anymore, I do have so many games already and most of them havent even been installed yet...damn you steam) this process can take years. Basically hype is the same as advertisement which everybody has more then enough experience with but hype targets something that the individual wants so all of a sudden you have other factors playing in (greed, hope, desperation) which might turn usually pragmatic people into fanboys

I like to believe that I m pretty resistent to hype these days. I dont need to be one of the first to play a game and I dont really am too bothered to playing a game that was released last year. Convention trailers are identical to TV ads. Half of it is exaggeration and the other half has multiple meanings leaving you with a vaguely positive impression. I usually wait for tests and streamer videos which means I dont invest into early access or pre-order. I know pretty well what I like and dislike by now so a lot of games can be filtered out up front. From the pool of potential candidates left some are too expensive or simply not good enough to keep my interest for long...I guess my standards have become pretty high since I grew up....

Of course a lot of these things (patience, rational evaluation, being able to distance yourself etc) comes with age and I do believe that many youngsters today are helpless against the predatory marketing strategies multi-billion dollar companies utilize against them due to a lack of experience. Many who will get disappointed will learn their lesson in due time but same as school theres always new youngsters coming in who have to make that experience themselves.

 

[starman]

Personally what I take from it, at least with the space sims, is that familiarity breeds contempt ... i.e. people have forgotten just how awesome ED really is. It's a stunningly sophisticated and well developed game.

Treat ED like you would treat a beautiful woman and never take her for granted!

Keep grinding