Home    General Stuff    General Gaming
#1

Hype/Pessimism and Games

Archive: 13 posts

Hype/Pessimism and Games
By: Tristan Cole (AKA Guitarrassdeamor)


When you are excited for a game, that is one thing. When you hype a game until nobody wants to hear about it after it is released, that is a different thing. Pessimism does no good either. Such goes for games past, present, and coming.

Now, to start out, I am a pessimist. I look at the negative side of a lot of things often, that is just my nature. Of course there are other people who look at life in the negative as well, which deems us pessimists, the opposite of optimists who look for the good in everything. Well, some things there are no good in. Some things there are no bad in, however, most people will tell you that there is bad in everything, which I don't believe, but we won't touch on that.

To get excited for a game is good. You know, you support the game, it looks really good, the screens are great, story sounds like it will be worth playing, you have seen some gameplay, you know, it looks good. Well, thats being interested in a a game. To hype a game is to overly publicize it and take what was said above and multiply it by 10. Hype ruins games. Do you know why? It creates a false sense of things you can do in that game or what that game will be. There are some games that all the hype is true, until you get one person who throws something wrong into that mix. Let's look at the examples below.

Haze- This game was hyped FAR past the extreme. Haze was hyped out to be the Halo Killer and the best first person shooter the world has seen so far. Well, according to most, it wasn't. The thing that killed the game? Hype. People were spreading rumors about the game, claiming it was to be the best game ever, the graphics were amazing and going to pass everything, and claiming that Nectar would be the mos amazing thing ever. Some of the stuff going around was pure FUD. While some of the stuff that was going around was obviously true, it was hyped to the extreme. People were getting excited. It was normal for that. When the demo was released, about 90% of the gaming community passed it off, saying that it was COMPLETE crap. Well, this wasn't true. We come back to the killer, a little word I like to call hype. The game was good overall. The graphics weren't truly amazing, but they were definitely better than some we have seen. The gameplay was good, and the CO-OP was fun, and the story was good in the full game from what most people said. However, you sit there and look at all the information past, building it up to be the best game ever, and now you wonder how it failed? With all the crap that went around with it, no wonder it wasn't very good to most people. If it had of been not hyped, and people were just excited for it, then we would have been fine, and I guarantee you it would have seen more sales, and more people would have wanted to play it.

Grand Theft Auto IV- First off, if you don't know how much this game was hyped, then you obviously aren't interested in anything with the gaming community. This was by far the most anticipated release on any system, especially because it was multi-platform. Well, obviously, we expect a GTA IV game, which is exactly what this was. A good Grand Theft Auto game, and what Grand Theft Auto was meant and needed to be. Well, guess what ruined this? You guessed it, Hype. This game was hyped the most out of any game I can remember. Everybody wanted to play it. So, we kept seeing screens from it, and they looked great. People kept saying things such as you can drive planes and get chainsaws and all the crap that wasn't true, and that Rockstar never stated. However, a week or so before release, we see a plethora of leaked stuff over the internet. The game had leaked into many hands, and we had complete streams of gameplay over the whole internet. It was great in my opinion. The only thing was, this created more and more hype. The thing was that people would be asking these people to do insane things in the game, which they couldn't or wouldn't do. Half the people didn't watch these anyways, but heard the testimonials from the people who had watched them, and automatically thought it was going to be the best game ever. So, when it releases, 10/10 reviews EVERYWHERE. I mean, the game was a gold mine for Rockstar, and reviewers thought it was the second coming. It was and is a great game, however, people played it, realized that there wasn't all you could do that people said. Then people started playing online, and that aspect was pretty much a win/lose, with the latter for most. People would play the game for a solid 5 hours or so, then say the game sucked because it was too real and not enough like San Andreas like it was hyped to be. Was the game bad? Hell no it wasn't bad. In fact, the game was VERY good. It took the side of realism, and did a VERY good job of it. However, this wasn't what the hype said, nor what was expected, so after people beat the story or just played for 20 hours or so, they decided "the game sucks because there is no replayablility or no fun in the game" with stuff that wasn't mentioned or was hyped to be there but wasn't.
On a side not of this, Saints Row 2 took this hype as a good thing to promote their game. They knew it was negative, so they took it and ran. They advertised all the stuff that "you couldn't do in Grand Theft Auto IV", such as throwing friends in front of trains and buying houses and pimping cars. They knew that GTA IV was hyped to have this stuff in it, so they fed off of it like hungry vultures.

Little Big Planet- Here's the big one. As you all probably know, I am hyped for Little Big Planet past where I need to be. Yep, I AM HYPED FOR IT. The f-bomb of this article. While I am hyped, I present positive hype, because I know EXACTLY what is true for this game. I know exactly what the content will be like, what we will be able to do, and how the system will work (when I say exactly, I mean exactly in the general state, so take that as you must). So, I created a group for the game, and must say, it is going great. With all the stuff we have been hearing about this game, it is great. However, there has been things going around that are not true at all. Now, I as a person who is very interested has joined forums for Little Big Planet, I have done my research, and know what is true and not from talking to developers. People have been spreading things such as you can put custom music in games, any images, and other things that are crap. Well, that sort of stuff will ruin Little Big Planet. You cannot import custom content into the game except through the PS Eye. All the untrue rumors and hype going around about this game are just killing me, as I know how good it is going to be. Spread it positively if you are going to hype, but don't spread the crap.

This brings me to my next point, the pessimism in gaming. Like I said, I am a pessimist, but I can still see the other parts of life. However, when you start a topic such as "Could this (game) be an epic failure?" or a topic such as that, do you know how much that screws things up? Number one, it just creates more negative hype, by people stretching the truth on how good it will be. next, it just creates a flame baiting topic. Number two, how can you ask could it fail when it hasn't been released. even though we have seen how it plays and such, and nothing negative has been said about the game? Where are the topics such as "Could this (game) be the epic game ever?"? While it would create more hype, positive or negative, it would be better than the alternative.

The point is, STOP HYPING GAMES. STOP LOOKING AT THEM AS A PESSIMIST. This not only ruins games, but gets peoples hopes up, and some people hate it.		2008-08-30 23:36:00

Author:
Unknown User

I do agree, Hype is a double edge sword, it causes our expectations to raise and the game would either pass it and become the most epic thing ever, or fail and go down as another muck....

However, You can't really hate people for eating, what my friends call "Media Hyperbole"*



*Media Hyperbole(Hyper- bole: not hyper-bola as commonly used in society) : what the media does to get people excited for the game; Show CG trailers, avoid game progress, vague details about things.

ex: Final Fantasy XIII,

They are just responding the way the media wants them, and sometimes that is good, lack of hype will infact kill a game. (look at my sig, do you recognize this man? how about my avy, do you recognize that dragon? They are from very poorly advertized video games...)		2008-08-31 00:20:00

Author:
Reshin
Posts: 1081

Nice read, people need to stop making games into thing they're not. Though, I don't really care about what other people say about LBP, I pretty much know that I'm going to enjoy playing, no matter how much hype goes into it.2008-08-31 00:23:00

Author:
Code1337
Posts: 3476

Good read, interesting take on things. I agree about the overhyping of games, but sometimes people can't help it. IIRC, previewers kept saying that Haze was a Halo-killer, but it did have some major bugs that were "going to be ironed out" and never were. Rarely are those types of bugs, but previewers talk about the game as if they aren't there.

Anyway, it was cool to see three different aspects - a game overhyped that failed, a game overhyped that succeeded, and a game yet to come out.		2008-08-31 00:53:00

Author:
bbroman
Posts: 1374

Good stuff but I don't think rockster or EA care when they have some HYPE, GTA4 sold alot of copies over HYPE. So HYPE can be good or bad, depending on how the game sells. I think GTA4 was a okay game but it really was not what I wanted from a GTA gam, it fell shor, but still a great story and graphic. One game I am worried about is Star Wars, I think the HYPE for this game is going to fall short of realit.

But a game that should live up to it's HYPE is Street Fighter 4		2008-08-31 01:02:00

Author:
Darth_Spartan
Posts: 813

Ya, I believe actually 1 game achieved and demolished all of it's hype. That was MGS4. I have yet to see another game pass their hyped greatness, That goes for LBP too. Too much hype can completely ruin a game Ex.Haze,Lair,Halo 3.2008-08-31 01:22:00

Author:
LittleBigMan
Posts: 326

Well, I don't know, MGS4 was too hyped for me as well, and didn't live up to what I thought it would be.2008-08-31 17:39:00

Author:
Unknown User

Good read. For me I usually am pretty calm about games and don't fall into hype for most things. LBP is probably the most i have ever really looked forward to a game ever and I feel pretty confident it will be as good as I feel it will be. Another good thing about games today is free demos they are allowing people to simply download so if you are iffy about a game just download and try before spending 60 bucks.2008-09-01 11:16:00

Author:
Cartoonguy
Posts: 234

so if you are iffy about a game just download and try before spending 60 bucks.

or 120 in Australia		2008-09-12 05:10:00

Author:
muttjones
Posts: 843

Well, I don't know, MGS4 was too hyped for me as well, and didn't live up to what I thought it would be.
I agree with you, I was expecting alot more. Not saying it was a bad game but I thought it was going to be more, with all the talk about a 50gb game, using all the blu ray, I was thinking this game is going to be HUGE and it was a small let down.		2008-09-12 15:38:00

Author:
Darth_Spartan
Posts: 813

Great article.

One of the creators said that you can put pics on from a USB stick.		2008-09-12 16:04:00

Author:
moleynator
Posts: 2914

Great article.

One of the creators said that you can put pics on from a USB stick.

Thanks.
You cannot however. It is limited to the PS Eye only, and that is an official statement.		2008-09-12 20:25:00

Author:
Unknown User

I would agree, but with a note: I think there are good and bad variants of hype. Good hype would be putting forth things about a game that make the game great, and advancing its cause through either the real world or the interblag. Bad hype, however, takes the game and blows it out of proportion and Photoshops it to look better than it actually is. Exact same points brought up, just clarified.

Also, I'm a realist. I tend to see things as they are. Although I can lean either way to optimism or pessimism, although tending towards the pro.		2008-09-16 01:58:00

Author:
Mark D. Stroyer
Posts: 632


LBPCentral Archive Statistics
Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Datenschutz
Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.