Game Developers: Stop Overpromising 382
Andru Edwards writes "Recently, there has been a flurry of game developers releasing games which did not live up to expectations the developers set earlier on. Due to this pratice of overhyping upcoming games, gamers have become wary of those games which have major hyoe behind them. Here is a look at which developers are falling victim to the hype, as well as why Nintendo's frustrating strategy might actually be the best approach after all."
No words needed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No words needed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No words needed (Score:3, Interesting)
TF II (Score:3, Informative)
http://teamfortress2.sierra.com/ [sierra.com]
Anyone know where it went?
Re:TF II (Score:5, Funny)
So, not dead, merely resting. Yes, that's it.
Stop Overpromising (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers? How about Reviewers! (Score:3, Insightful)
While I don't play console games, I know that the console mags are often unable or unprepared to give realistic reviews on the hyped new title. PC games mag
Re:Candidates? How about consumers? (Score:3, Interesting)
That'll almost certainly be down to the publisher, not the developers themselves. I don't know many games devs, but I know a fair few programmers, and I can't think of any who don't want to do the best job they can.
Re:Candidates? How about consumers? (Score:5, Informative)
What I disagree with you on is what you think the role of marketing is.
As a marketer, my job is to let the public know about our product. Now, ethical people like myself would not lie about a product or promise things that obviously don't have a snowballs chance of hell of making it into this version. We do not just go hog wild with everything you give us......well, not if we're good at what we do. You see, its one thing if you just want to sell a product to someone once and never see them again, and never get any customers again. But if you have any desire of getting return customers, or having them spread the good word so you get more first time customers, viral marketing (industry term for word of mouth) is ESSENTIAL. And you don't have a chance in hell of getting that unless you have a solid product that lives up to your claims.
So while not all marketers are evil, and not all of us hype the hell out of everything we touch, game companies are definitely guilty as charged. And you are dead on about people eating up the hype. Well, ignorant people who don't suspect hype at least, which unfortunately is the vast majority.
In our industry, there's two terms we use, hype and buzz. Hype is more of a negative thing for the exact reasons you describe. Buzz however is the viral marketing aspect of it, and means people are spreading the good word about your product because the product lives up to claims, and in essence, sells itself.
You've been conned. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are plenty of ways to get your hands on the original media long enough to copy it, and when CD burners were $800, and media was $30 a pop, most stores still wouldn't take returns. Back then, the reason was that you might put a virus on the write only CD.
From personal experience, I used to work at a Software Etc. We did take returns. In fact when someone came back and told us the game worked fine, but sucked, we would tell them that they should brink it back for a refund or exchange! Funny thing is that crappy/buggy games got returned fairly often, and good games almost never got returned. I don't think a single copy of Falcon 4.0 (The best flight sim at the time) ever got returned.
In two years, only one time did I ever run across an individual that was abusing the return policy. After about the 5th return, I simply explained to the "customer" that we obviously don't sell software that is compatible with his system, so this would be the last return he would be allowed to make. Since returns required a form to be filled out (like in almost all types of stores) that contained a name, it is incredibly easy to see if someone is abusing a store return policy, even in a big Best Buy type store.
Um can we Say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Um can we Say... (Score:2)
Re:Um can we Say... (Score:3, Funny)
what I do (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, just wait a few months (or years) for them to get cheaper... At least for Xbox, you can go out and buy the system for less than 50% of the original cost. Most of the good games are "Platinum Classics" or some such, which means $20 brand new.
I just got a Nintendo 64, and let me tell you, that Goldeneye game is fun! You pay a high cost to keep up with the game industry, and arguably don't get any additional entertainment from your hours devoted to gaming. Don't be a herd consumer.
My 0.02...
Re:what I do (Score:5, Insightful)
You also get the fun of calculating the original costs of what just bought. I bought a dreamcast kit for £30 inc P&P which would have cost over £1000 if I'd bought it new. Now THATS a depreciating investment.
On the N64, one of the greatest games ever made (Score:3, Interesting)
Nowadays you can get it for a song, and it's still just as great to play as it was when it was new.
Great minds! (Score:2, Interesting)
I didn't get my Dreamcast until after they officially killed it off. I bought mine at Sears for $100, and it came with an extra controller, memory card, and two games. All the good games are $20 new, and the moderate games are $10 used.
I bought my N64 two years after it was released, and only because KBToys had a deal I appreciated. I only had four games until they released the Gamecube. Now I have
Totally agree (Score:2)
Sure, that means sacrificing the best graphics and such, but gameplay really hasn't improved much overall. Plus, with a modern machine, many older games look a lot better anyway.
Or, if you want even LONGER... (Score:3)
I still play some of the old classics, like Super Ghouls and Ghosts (SNES), the sonics (Genesis) and some not-TOO-old games like F-ZeroX (N64) and the N64 Zelda.
Not to mention the thousands of MAME titles and such..
With emulators, games will never die. The XBox is actually pretty awesome when it comes to this - all these emulators are available on a modded Xbox, for play on a full TV screen. You can even get controller adapters to hook up old Atari, Nintendo, etc contr
Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:2)
Few games have made me feel that way since SNES Lemmings. :-)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are the highly addictive games? I still play frequency even though some of the songs I can probably close my eyes and still win.
i am tired of PC games remade for consoles, Movie based games, or other games where the game it's self was not the origional idea. I am also sick of games that are single player only. games are a huge blast when you have 2 or more players, 4 player games completely rock.... nothing beats trash talking your 10 year old in a fighting game or in MarioKart GC or screwing up 3 of your friends on a multiplayer game.
I beg to disaggree (Score:4, Insightful)
It wouldn't have hurt if it were a bit longer, though.
But then, you know, that's a sign that you actually enjoyed whatever content was in it: it leaves you wanting for more. I can think of other games I said "good riddance" to at the end, or even games which I never bothered (or even wanted to) finish.
Whereas Fable had me pretty much glued to the chair until the end. It had me thinking about it at work. And then there I was thinking "whaaa...? Over already. But I want more!"
I never tried drugs, but I'd imagine that's what drug addiction is like.
And heck, as hype goes it definitely wasn't a selling point for me. After the utter shit that was Black and White, another hyped PM game was _not_ quite something I'd fall for that easily. Doubly so another game where he passes piss-poor judgment on what "good" and "evil" means.
I mean, that guy may well be obsessed with "good vs evil", but he's totally unable to depict more than a carricature of what either means. None of his games, ever since Populous 1, raised above the over-simplified AD&D notion of "good" and "evil".
So the short version is: all that the hype had as an effect is that I was actually planning _not_ to buy it. It took a lot of talking to friends and co-workers who've actually played it before I tried it.
So basically, please. Fable may not have been _everyone's_ cup of tea. No game ever is. But there are also one helluva lot of us who think it was worth every cent and then some. In fact, in my case it was also worth every cent I paid for the XBox just to play it. (I didn't already own an XBox.)
Basically for a lot of us it _did_ live up to the hype, and then some.
Re:I beg to disaggree (Score:5, Insightful)
An example I've given before is Al Capone. On one hand, he ordered brutal executions and even personally killed people. On the other hand, he opened the first soup kitchens after the stock market crash. He also ordered merchants to give food and clothing to the extremely poor on his own expense.
Was he good or was he evil? IRL I think we'd still all aggree that he was evil. In D&D's or PM's view he is basically neither. Heck, in D&D or in any computer game that would probably balance out as "neutral".
I also have a major problem with reducing evil to something that can be automatically detected by a spell or by a better sword. It no longer is something that depends on what you've done, but, well, something like the colour of your eyes. You were just born with it, and is so obvious that even an inanimate item can detect it.
I also have a problem with it being just an excuse to _kill_ on sight. _Especially_ after being reduced to something that meaningless. D&D's view can basically be reduced to "if you're good, go ahead and kill some evil guys already." If someone showed as the wrong alignment to your spell, that's your clue to slaughter them for xp.
Which is a sick and stupid view of what "good" is. E.g., a noble paladin burning down a drow orphanage, with the drow children still in it, would probably count as just doing a good deed. Sorry, nope. No way. That's not what "good" means.
Also I have a major problem with D&D's shoving whole species under automatically evil.
1. The way it works, in that it's an automatic excuse to kill whole races on sight, is _nazi_. Whole species or cultures are destined to be mass-slaughtered by the "good" guys, for no other reason than the race they were born in.
It doesn't matter if any member of that race actually did anything wrong in their whole life. They're evil and free-for-all to kill anyway.
Not only in D&D. I still remember setting Populous 1 on auto-play, and watching the "evil" guys just minding their own evil business. Ploughing their evil fields, building their evil cities, and the like. Then suddenly, for no obvious reason, the "good" guys built an army and slaughtered them all.
Who was "good" and who was "evil" there?
2. Such a race where everyone is just waiting for half an occasion to rob or murder each other, would have never made it out of stone age. There is no way a drow culture for example would have got anywhere near where it is in D&D, as a race where everyone is born evil.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:4, Interesting)
When you own a business, it's nice to sell a whole crapload of product the first month it's out, but your business is going to be around for much longer than a month. If you can successfully manage a product now that still has successful sales 3 years from now, you will never have a problem with profits.
I don't know enough about Pikmin to know if it will still be successfully selling in a few years but if it's as good as you say then I wouldn't be surprised.
Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly (Score:4, Interesting)
And that's really the problem. You need to cut things. Either the hyperreal evolutionary landscape was dragging down the processor, or it added layers of unnecessary interaction that killed gameplay (Masters of Orion 3), or you just didn't have time to finish a given feature properly (the extra spirit forges from Soul Reaver), but features will be cut. If you're unprofessional and blog your development cycle to fans who build up notions from your scattered information, you're going to disappoint many of them with decisions that ultimately were correct.
All developers love their fans, and want to have a personal relationship with them. But there are areas where this has to be off limits. All entertainment media know that you have to keep people quiet if you want the experience to be new and unexpected. That we're still struggling with this issue is just another sign of our relative youth as an industry. Enough info will leak out anyway to keep your fans interested. Look at Star Wars, or the LotR productions.
Don't worry. We're getting there.
Due to a technical error, News will be at 12.
Eliteness of Elite (Frontier) (Score:5, Informative)
They have, howver, been successful in shutting down the existing Elite derivatives like E:TNK and terminating Darkness Falls.
Don't forget the true master (Score:5, Informative)
Hype is the real business (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially now it's more true than ever. Games get hyped and then rushed into production. Finally they release an inferior product that is not only far from what the promise was but also full of bugs.
It's the problem with the internet-age: make a crappy product and ship it as soon as the beta-testers give the thumbs up (but with minimal amount of testing) and release patches on your webpage later.
So far this year I haven't seen a single game that has lived up to the hype. Not even Doom3, even though it was a half-decent play it did not come close to the hype surrounding it.
As I said, this is not only limited to games. Look at every product that Microsoft/etc has released in the last 5-6 years. They promise to revolutionize the world, but it's the same wordprocessor in a slightly new package.
[end of rant]
Re:Hype is the real business (Score:2)
Intel and Microsoft are billion dollar companies, run by highly experienced executives, marketers, and engineers. They have lifers on staff for corporate memory. Not only should they know better, it's their job to know better.
Then again, both firms seem to insist on being run like a startup.
Re:Hype is the real business (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened? Everyone subscribed and then quit within the first month. Several months later after they finally fixed some of the problems they went back to all of the customers that cancelled and offer a free month to give them a second chance.
Developers? What about the product managers? (Score:5, Funny)
Product Manager: When will Project A be delivered?
Lead Developer: There is a 50% chance we can deliver by March next year.
Product Manager: Good, I'll tell the customers we can deliver by February. We can deliver Feature B right?
Lead Developer: We don't have enough people to finish developing it by March.
Product Manager: You developers work overtime all the time anyway right. February it is.
Re:Developers? What about the product managers? (Score:2)
Product Manager: when will Project "A" be delivered?
Lead Developer: (hmmm... we could probably get it done by January, but the PM is going to ask for sooner...) There's a 50% chance we can deliver by March next year.
PM: Good, I'll tell the customers we can deliver by February.
LD: (Good... some room for padding...)
PM: We can deliver Feature B, right?
LD: We don't have enough people to finish developering it by March.
PM: You developers work overtime and spend
Re:Developers? What about the product managers? (Score:2)
PM: When can you get it delivered?
LD: In a couple of weeks it's 95% finished.
(A week later)
PM: How are we progressing?
LD: Almost there, another couple of weeks, it's 95% finshed.
(Several weeks later)
PM: How are we progressing?
LD: Almost there, another couple of weeks, it's 95% there. But look at this cool feature I've added.
PM: Was that in the spec?
LD: No but surely everyone wants VI support in their RPG. Otherwise how are they going
overpromising == preorders.. (Score:5, Insightful)
doesn't take a genius to figure out why to do it, and more than that - GAMERS FORGET FAST. and they lack spine. even when they have spine and decide that they'll NEVER buy a game from some particular studio or a publisher with kiss-of-deadly-bugs.. they just switch names.
We've got to try, at least... (Score:5, Insightful)
From my short experience, cool features tend to get eliminated from a project as the delivery deadline grows near - not added.
Half of the awesome blue-sky ideas that we have for a game end up never working out. That's just the nature of the business. That doesn't mean that we're going to stop trying, though.
Re:We've got to try, at least... (Score:3, Interesting)
Scotty on the enterprise always tells Kirk that a repair is going to take 3 hours and finishes it it 2. Kirk can plan around that. Now if Scott took the same estimates, promised the job would take one hour if everything went well, and delivered in 2 he would be viewed as incompetant.
Generally when you report a fact to the buying public, the expect it to be a done
Re:We've got to try, at least... (Score:2)
Falcon4, for example - most hyped flight sim of its day - took something like three years of Microprose and community work after release to be playable. BF1942 didn't work online reliably for months after release, *still* doesn't have a working server browser and servers crash constantly, even aft
Doom III (Score:3, Insightful)
The only sig I need is actually spelled "cig".
Byzandula
Re:Doom III (Score:3, Insightful)
I know its supposed to be dark, but come on, this was no fun.
Re:Doom III (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doom III (Score:3, Funny)
printf("You found some ammo
Obviously I was wrong.
Re:Doom III (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doom III (Score:3, Insightful)
I expected an action-horror FPS, and that's what I got. You may have been looking for a Quake1-style action-arcade FPS, or a Half-Life-style "w
Re:Doom III (Score:3, Insightful)
The game was being released for the Xbox, so it's hardly a reminder of why you play PC games. Moreover, where in the ell did you get that idea anyway? People cmplain about the hype, but I followed Doom3 development (well, id's announcements anyway) and I never recall them trying to claim any such thing, or making any sort of h
Re:Doom III (Score:3, Insightful)
But seriously... Complaining about D3's plot as a HL ripoff is really silly, since it is explicitly a re-telling of the Doom -1- story. Although I did hear that id actually hired a writer to create the script for them (based, of course, on the original Doom 1 constraints), in which case I think they got ripped off. As they did on the score, except for the decent tool-ripoff title screen
Text of the story (Score:4, Informative)
"October 21, 2004
Game Publishers: Stop Overpromising!
Overhyped Videogames FableWhen Fable came out, everyone got to see if all the hype (and cool features expressed by Lionhead Studio head Peter Molyneux) is worth anything. Depending on where you go, you'll find glowing reviews to so-so reviews, mostly depending on if that person expected more (with good reason), or could just live with what the game actually provides. I personally feel that game reviews should be based on what the game has done right and wrong, rather than what I wanted to see, resulting in nitpicking every little detail.
But in this case, is it wrong to expect more? The Gear Live editors present their case after the jump.
Dorian: Look at companies like Nintendo, Valve and Bungie for instance.
Nintendo almost never reveals much about their games before release. The bulk of the game is left for us to explore on our own, and I think most gamers are the better for it.
Valve did the unthinkable, and for almost five years managed to develop Half-Life 2 without revealing anything until E3 right before last September's ill-fated launch (forget arguments about how ready they actually were).
Bungie has been very tight-lipped about Halo 2, at least as far as single player is concerned. Outside of the 10 minute footage of New Mombasa from last year's E3, almost nothing has been revealed, leaving all the details about what was not in the first Halo: Online Multiplayer.
We can probably think of other examples of game devs who kept their mouths shut and left most of their cards up their sleeves. But Lionhead Studios didn't manage to do that; they told us every single idea that popped up in their heads, as if they were brainstorming their ideas out in public. While not outright promising these features, most gamers were expecting more than what they got. Is that so wrong in this case?
Also in the news is Polyphony Digital's long waited Gran Turismo 4, and the stripping of the online multiplayer mode. While they gave no exact reason, one can extrapolate that they couldn't get online working in time for the holidays, and Sony didn't want to let their potentially biggest seller release past the lucrative holiday season. So instead of delaying the game, just take out the mode and sell the "upgraded version" at a later date. While on the surface this sounds good, they haven't said whether the upgrade will be at budget pricing, full price, have a trade in for the old version, or allow for save file compatibility between versions. There are a lot of unknowns, and it's well within reasons for those who were looking forward to racing online come December to be disappointed.
So, who's to blame when devs talk of features that don't ultimately make it? Does it all even matter?
Well obviously, the game devs themselves should show a little more restraint whenever being interviewed, especially when the game is in a pre-beta state. At that point nothing is set in stone, and this very same thing can happen as with Fable. It might be hard to resist nowadays, in this instant information age we live in. (It seems like you can't click a few web pages without running into a movie or TV show spoiler or people, for lack of a better word, "pirating" the latest software or games, even before they hit the stores (also another topic for another day). But for the greater good, talking about only that which won't spoil the entire experience seems like the best way to go.
As for you, the game players, the best way to take reading all these features and interviews on games is to take it all in stride. The only time you can honestly trust any report on a game is the actual review, so sit tight, don't read up too much on a certain game if you want to be surprised, and hope for the best. Worse case scenario, if the game isn't what you were expecting, either rent it or just don't buy it. Or do what every savvy game player does nowadays: v
Its not just the development houses... (Score:4, Interesting)
Kotor on PC was bug laden crap... (Score:2)
As a sort of related aside I think that the guys making KOTOR2 have really found the balance. They release a few details but nothing that will give the story away or stop any of the 'drama' from being played out once the game is available.
Yeah, but can they make a game that can be "played out" on the PC? I would just like for them to have a game that runs.
I have a Athlon XP 1700, 512 RAM, and a new 128 MB Nvidia card, and the damn thing can't run it? It is practically a turn based strategy ga
Re:Kotor on PC was bug laden crap... (Score:2)
Amusing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amusing (Score:3, Insightful)
That saddened me, because Peter Molyneux really has nothing to apologise for. In the design process of ANY game, cool features are conceived, and tossed about, and then pulled because they used too much CPU time or weren't worth the amount of time they would have taken to implement.
Peter Molyneux has a passion for computer game design. He will talk to anybody about the cool ideas. At no point does he ever 'Overpromise'; he rarely promises anything. He just tells the public what his design team are coming u
Over-expecting (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem of their fans getting unrealistic expectations all on their own. There's been a stunningly good example of this recently, namely Doom 3. This game comes in for a lot of flak on slashdot games; it gets called a let-down, a flop, a sell-out and a glorified tech demo. It isn't any of these.
I'd been following Doom 3's development, albeit sometimes from a distance, ever since it was first announced. So far as I can see, the end product was no different to what had been promised all along. The only significant feature to vanish was co-op play and I don't think that had ever been promised all that firmly to begin with. We'd been told to expect an atmospheric (and downright scary) single-player focussed FPS, updating the Doom games for modern hardware, with extremely limited multiplayer. I'd call this a pretty exact description of the game I played.
However, because of ID's reputation and because the Quake series (much like the aforementioned Nintendo) has acquired a fan-base which often defies reason and logic in its zealotry, there had been an unjustified expectation that the game would me much more. Despite all the warnings about the multiplayer, I still remember the cries of anguish when the game turned out to be unsuitable as a platform for Quake-style deathmatch play. I remember the people who were infuriated that the game wasn't Farcry or Half-Life 2, with huge areas and ground-breaking AI. Is it fair to blame ID for this? No. They put out a decent game, not perfect, but very decent. I look forward to seeing a similar reaction when/if Raven's Quake 4 sees the light of day.
Simple message: don't succumb to fanboydom. If you're waiting for a game, base your expectations on what the developers tell you (plus a healthy dose of scepticism), rather than your own aspirations.
Re:Over-expecting (Score:3, Insightful)
Then I heard about Doom3 and thought i
Ed MacMahon Support? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm always wary when Ed MacMahon is backing up a game.
"I'm Ed MacMahon. Buy Halo2. Hyyoooooe!"
They will never stop overpromising. (Score:2, Insightful)
yeah... (Score:2)
And it's not just games... the AvP movie has been anticipated for years but in the end, it was just crap. Daikatana, Doo
Article makes a good point, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
What separates the good companies that deliver on their promises from the shitbad slackers that deliver a half-done product with missing features that you have to download 50 megs of patches to even play?
It's not size. Companies as big as Sony Online Entertainment (most recently Star Wars Galaxies) and as small as Reakktor Media GMBH (Neocron 2) have all failed miserably to deliver on their promises and hype. You could assume that a huge company like Sony could hire competent managers, but that's obviously not true. But conversely, some smaller companies don't do any better either.
This is something that merits more study. As the gaming industry grows, more and more non-gamers are involved with production of games -- especially in areas like marketing.
These people probably don't understand fully how the "gamer" demographic thinks. They often don't understand that with the ubiquity of internet communications, people are gonna discover that a game is a lump of crap often the day it's released, or even before that if there's an open beta. Just google the title and read a few reviews . And if a game is asstastic, well, gamers have no brand loyalty. They'll happily tell a company to roll up their game, stick it in their ass, and set it on fire. And they'll do it publicly and vociferously.
Re:Article makes a good point, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair, Blizzard doesn't always deliver the knock-out punch on the first try. Their games always put the playability feature first, then work from there. The main thing that separates Blizzard from their competitors isn't being innovative (they aren't), but their consistent attention to detail. If they don't get it right at first (and believe me, they don't) they'll release countless patches until they do. For example, as recently as 10/28/04, they released a patch for Diablo II, which was first released 6/29/00 (yes, over *four* years ago).
You might think their many updates and patches part of a rush-to-market mentality, but they've consistently delayed games until they were playable and enjoyable out of the box. It's their constant attention to fans (the BnetD fiasco excluded) after the sale that's made them so successful and so popular.
Re:Article makes a good point, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Common Problem In All Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing is constantly making deals without realizing the feasiblity of making these deals. Development wants to make the most bulletproof features available which means less features. It has gotten to the point where selling "hype" is all Marketing can do because they view Development as something they can't control. Especially if there are commisions involved Marketing doesn't really care if they are writing checks Development can't cash.
I am never surprised when this happens to games. I see this all of the time in the dull ISV sector where the markets are much smaller. Considering how much marketing there is in games now I can't imagine the insane pressures being thrown around.
You gotta hand it to Nintendo. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quickly, think of all of the developers that were stolen out from under Nintendo by Microsoft's checkbook. Five? Ten? A lot for sure. All of those developers. That would have killed everyone but Sony and Microsoft, who took losses on their machines for a long, long time. How many killer titles can you hand over to another company and still be alive in a competetive, hype-driven marketplace? Face it people, Nintendo is as healthy as they come when you have people throwing billions at you to topple you. Most of you wouldn't judge the quality of the car by the size of the manufacturer, so why do it with games?
Oh, and by the way, Halo is just not THAT great. Sorry. I know for many of you this is the first time you have ever played against someone online, and you're a newlywed with the game, but others have been doing it for decades. I'm not saying that Halo sucks, it doesn't. I am saying that many of us can trace our online lineage back to Quake 2 and until you've swung away from your enemies with grappling hooks, or Tribes bombers, or whateever, you realize you've done this Halo stuff before. It is not original. It should not be hyped as original.
It's only original to the ones that have never seen it before.
Rock on, Nintendo. You give me games my wife would like to play.
Re:You gotta hand it to Nintendo. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're not going to last forever.
With the way the XBox division is losing them money, and rumors that the next XBox might not be backwards compatible, I wouldn't be suprised to see them take more than a little downturn in that area in a few years.
And meanwhile Nintendo is still hanging in there with the console market, and absolutely owns the handheld market. I get the feeling
Re:You gotta hand it to Nintendo. (Score:3, Informative)
Quake 2? What?
Man, some of us can trace our online gaming lineage back to the original DOOM over a null modem cable.
n00b.
If you ask someone often enough... (Score:2)
Overpromising will cease when the press stops chasing after every rumour, because they know their readers are interested. It would help if the game-buying public didn't pore over every preview and hint, and want more details.
Fat chance.
I'm curious, why should they stop? (Score:2)
Speaking as a software developer.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps, just perhaps (Score:2)
this story.. (Score:2)
So game publishers, stop overpromising. Let your games sell themselves, instead of your PR representatives. Have some faith in the developers talents, just like in the old days. Yes, your game may sell well, but when expectations aren't met you can expect the sequel not to do so well.
I'm suprised with the mention of all these games (San Andreas/HL2/Halo2/Doom3), not one of these people brought up anything about piracy, which has run rampant with 90% of the titles mentioned. I c
Developers Do Not Make Promises (Score:2)
I have been in IT for a relatively long time and yet I have not seen one developer who promised something that could not be done! Most of the time developers are on the conservative side because they know that no development process is perfect. However, things are different when it comes to marketing department...
Hegemonia/Haegemonia - Solon Heritage (Score:2)
_Always_ be wary of hyped things (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lesson in there. If something is surrounded by a lot of hype, this means that someone is trying to make you wait for their product, rather than going with a competitor's. If the hype is generated by the same group that produces the product, this is often indicative of the product being not that great. After all, if the product is really greater than the competition, people will come to use it anyway.
Case in point: OS/2 versus Windows 95. OS/2 was 32-bit, robust, included a GUI, and provided compatibility with Windows 3, long before Windows 95 was released. During all that time, Microsoft made so much hype for Windows 95 that OS/2 was almost completely ignored. When Windows 95 was released, it touted 32 bits, improved stability, and compatibility with Windows 3. Windows 95 was such a fantastic improvement over DOS and Windows 3 that everybody switched.
OS/2 got built-in networking and Internet support and various other improvements. But the Windows 95 users didn't notice, because they were too busy dealing with crashes. I've never seen OS/2 crash. It's one of those great systems (also BeOS) that were completely eclipsed by the hype generated for another product. I hate hype.
Re:_Always_ be wary of hyped things (Score:3, Insightful)
OS/2 could run native, Windows 3.x, and DOS applications. Windows 95 could run native, Windows 3.x, and DOS applications. No difference here, except that OS/2 was there first and thus already had some applications running on it when Windows 95 was released. OS/2 also had proper networking and Internet support before Windows. I think that makes it a whole lot more usable. Oh, and REXX scripting, and a better filesystem, and
BeOS does not run Wind
Gran Turismo 4 (Score:3, Interesting)
GT4 is another one that hits the over promissing scenario. The said it would be online and it won't. They said it would be ready for Christmas 2003, it wasn't.
Other comments on this topic are talking about the true product being hype. I guess that's true. When you go to a group that adores a certain game (Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo
Not just games (software) ... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why I've NEVER believed ANY of the hype that surrounds these new systems/games that come out unless they're from Nintendo. For example. When they announced the wavebird, every GameCube owner peed their pants in anticipation. What does Nintendo do? Give out CONSERVATIVE numbers. They said it should last 100hrs and have a range of about 20 feet. What happens in reviews? [ign.com], well, turns out that 90 feet wasn't a problem and (the testers couldn't test battery life) but let me tell you from experience, I've only had to replace the batteries twice since I purchased mine.
So, when Nintendo says the DS has a battery life of 8-10 hours like the SP, I have 100% faith that it will. When Nintendo says the range of the wireless on the DS is 30 feet, I can expect at least that, and a 95% chance it'll be over 50 feet. When Sony says the PSP should be able to play current PS2 games, I say, can you even fit a game of FIFA in before you need to plug it in?!?
Have fun waiting for the overhyped PSP, I'll be with my buddies (and apparently total strangers!) playing wicked ass DS games.
Sorry, that turned out to be more of a rant. Well I guess it is. I guess I'm ranting on all those game devs. that like to tell me one thing, and then deliver me crap [daikatana.com].
Misleading, not "overpromising" (Score:5, Interesting)
This trend is more of a rule than exception nowadays (I can think of at least dozen games in no time where I got burned in a similar fashion but never did anything about it) and we as investors in their products should finally stand-up and fight for our rights as consumers. In this case, there is enough of evidence to institute at least a lawsuit in a small claims court demanding money back for a product that did not deliver (especially in my case where I bought the game solely for the multiplayer experience).
I used to buy at least 2 games per month, nowadays (partially because I am not so much interested in gaming any more) I do not buy games any more, mainly because I am sick and tired of the lies and misleading politics by the game publishers.
It's about time to show these corporate bullies that we will not take this any more.
mmorpgs are the worst offenders (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't play SWG, but heard lots of complaints for friends who played about missing features, and promptly quit. I've played EQ, DAoC and CoH, and they were all guilty of it to varying degrees.
I think a lot of mmorpg fanboys default response to this is "It's a work in progress, you need to be patient, they need to develop their story arc". I call bullshit on that, when I pay $40-50 for a game, then $10-15 a month subscription, I want it full featured from Day 1, not Day 180 or Day 365.
I've been watching WoW and EQ2 for this, so far from the friends in both the betas, it sounds like WoW is delivering the features promised more than EQ2 is. We'll see.
As one friend said, don't sell me a car, and then tell me the seats and tires will come later; or worse, are part of an additional package I need to pay for - when it should be standard equipment.
HalfLife 2 (Score:3)
For one, yes, there was a hack, and yes, the source was released. The game *was* overhyped though. I agree that Valve did work secretly, but the problem is that the developers really didn't have much done, as evidenced by the source that Ago supposedly stole.
A good number of people think that it is arguable that he stole it. In fact, the logs from this "unknown" source were never verified. I agree with the article, but I don't think Valve is a great source of underhyping. Peter Molywhatever is pretty well known for hyping, though I don't imagine he ever really intends to hype the games.
Black & White was a horrible game. Dungeon Keeper (not overhyped) was an excellent game. I think development time is what really matters. I get more fun out of playing new games developed for old engines (Freelancer) than new games developed for new engines (Doom3).
I guess I value plot, story, and game interface more than I value all the fancy bells and whistles.
You can't handle the truth! (Score:3, Interesting)
"xyz Software announced , a knockoff of that adds two new features, five hundred new bugs, and a graphics slightly prettier than in the game just like it that you bought LAST year!"
Video game hype is like pr0n models: you know that the body parts are (mostly) fake, and that they'll probably OD or commit suicide within five years, but hey, it's fun to get off on until the real thing comes along.
Re:And this is news! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And this is news! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And this is news! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh lord, spare me. I'll bet you think "football" is played by kicking a spherical ball into little nets, too.
Re:And this is news! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And this is news! (Score:3, Funny)
I personally try to get out of the respawn area as quickly as possible. Damn campers.
Re:And this is news! (Score:2)
Can you think of a product that hasn't been overhyped by marketing types to in order stimulate consumer demand?
Short memory (Score:3, Informative)
I'd say closer to 30 years. Some background:
In the early 70s the chip maker General Instruments made a "pong on a chip" device as a skunkworks project (ie. it was a "for fun" project not designed for any of their customers). They observed that Atari Pong and Magnavox Odyssey (the REAL first video tennis game) were selling quite well. As such, G.I. contacted the inventor of the original game, Ralph Baer, for a license agreement to market the
Re:Short memory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can I get an Amen (Score:2)
I've done this myself - the temptation to talk about the features you've designed (rather than implemented) is often too great. In retrospect, put up or shut up.
Re:Can I get an Amen (Score:2)
Don't shoot the messenger .... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't "developers" making the promises, it's "business executives". It's not news, it's been that way throughout the software industry for
Developers, and by extension QA people and Production Support people live under the mantra that "just one more tweak and it'll be perfect". And that's "A Good Thing".
Marketing & Business types live under the mantra "opportunity cost & time to market". That, surprisingly enough, is also "A Good Thing" since money coming in allows developers the opportunity to write.
Those conflicting forces, when balanced with common sense and proper risk management, lead to the proper compromise of quality vs. timeliness.
The issue becomes bad, when "but we made a promise to our customers/shareholders and we can't lose face" becomes the over-riding concern and "but the software doesn't actually work yet" gets lost in the shuffle.
Too many companies in these days of "what have you done for me lately" quarterly profit/loss statement-driven management have lost the ability to think long term.
Re:Don't shoot the messenger .... (Score:3, Funny)
In soviet Russia... (Score:3, Funny)
Okay, I'll get some sleep.
Re:Mispelling (Score:2, Informative)
NO.... (Score:2)
Re:Imagine If... (Score:3, Insightful)
How would they have been treated in all the reviews? A bit like Tresspasser or Ultima IX, albeit without all the box puzzles and boring landscape?
You think people complain about how boring D3 is now --- all the horsepower a P4E can crank out just to render two or three zombies! Imagine if you were forced to play it on your bra
Re:Imagine If... (Score:2)
Re:Imagine If... (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone's obsessed with release dates, and I believe this is one of the biggest problems with game development these days.
Many people seem to assume that a game produces itself, and if it fails to meet the expected release date then the developers are somehow deliberately holding back a finished game. I've seen claims that Ha