Back in the days of yore, we gamers were limited to blurry screencaps in poorly printed magazines to get us hyped up about upcoming games. Man, has that ever changed. Gaming is big bucks, so now even our countdowns countdown to more countdowns (thanks, Konami) and our teaser trailers have their own teasers that run on television to advertise the full trailer being available on Xbox Live (boy is that ever awesome, Infinity Ward). There very well may be a thing as too much hype.
Anecdote time: Assassin’s Creed was one of my favorite games from 2007. It is almost universally hated by forumers for “not living up to the hype.” The game flew straight under my radar until I heard the game mentioned as a sandbox-style game, which is one of my favorite genres. I picked it up with a gift card and was extremely surprised that it was a good game. Not directly experiencing any “hype,” I had no expectations that the game could fail to meet, and I ended up enjoying stabbing some mans in the past.
Looking back on this experience, I’ve found it a good thing to distance myself from reading every piece of news, watching every little trailer and following every developer on Twitter. I don’t usually get games right away. Hell, I don’t even trust a lot of game reviews since the Gerstmangate fiasco (though since it was directly responsible for the creation of Giant Bomb, I’m selfishly glad it happened). I rely on word-of-mouth or reviews from sites like Some Other Castle or Geeks of Unusual Size.
Most geeks I know respond negatively to advertising, anyway. Before Adblock arrived on the scene, I had a crazy solution that involved a 3MB Hosts file to redirect banner ads to a null IP address. I don’t even have cable TV because I really don’t enjoy commercials. The hype isn’t for we who self-identify as gamers, but now that gaming is mainstream, the hype will never go away.
But please, marketing people, please stop promoting your games fifteen months before they release. Stop with the web countdowns, stop with the EXCLUSIVE TEASER TRAILERS. Honestly, make good games and we’re probably buying your games anyway already. We don’t need to be insulted by your shameless pandering for our mindshare.
It’s like all those damn drug companies advertising on TV….. put that money back into lower the cost of the medicine! Game companies, please, use your bloated PR budget more wisely.