We Happy Few scores a 4/10 on Gamespot; did MS make a mistake?

No, I'm saying that money isn't the only factor and doesn't carry a guarantee.

And I am trying to work with you, asking what the game is.

I am not suggesting it does carry a guarantee

but it works more often then it does not and why is it with every single solitary game I bring this up people say 'yeah but not this game'

same things where said about NMS to me, over and over and over and over again.

If there was a game that you would likely end up liking more than We Happy Few and filled that need that such a game would fill would you even know about it?

before E3 the narrative was that MS doesn't have ANY studios or exclusives. Now its changed to they don't have any GOOD studios/ exclusives.

What happens if these studios go against your expectations and produce decent games, whats the goalpost gonna be then. Lets not pretend that Guerrilla Games was at a naughty dog level until horizon redeemed their rep. They were close to being a trash tier dev. after their last 2 killzone games.

I can't speak for others, but for me with this game, you claim a huge advertising budget that I can't see, huge hype about how amazing it is that you can't show and attribute my hype to ownership by a company I really don't care for.

And yes, if there were a game with such an intriguing art style, atmosphere as this game with the storytelling ability I've seen from this studio, I'd probably know about it.

Microsoft has a LONG way to start rebuilding their portfolio again. They could have gotten on the ball years ago. If MS starts putting out good games that aren't H/G/F-related, then they'll get the praise. That how that works. MS has been a lot of promises and hype all gen, and have been either turning out lackluster products, or having games get outright cancelled. This skepticism is justified,

Funny how people tried to dismiss Guerrilla as a trash tier dev for Shadowfall, when it's still a more technically polished game than what's been coming out of MS studios lately.

I hear that every solitary time.

I hear it about every major release in which I make this point, every single solitary one of them.

marketing would not work if people believed that it worked.

what makes you think you would know about it if it was that good? you think good games all just boil up to the top magically and without marketing? your wrong

And yes, if there were a game with such an intriguing art style, atmosphere as this game with the storytelling ability I've seen from this studio, I'd probably know about it.

@BenjaminBanklin: I hope your not trying to tell me that shadow fall is a better game than Halo 5.

I barely played either but the only thing shadow fall had on halo 5 imo is multiplayer graphics. Idk why 343 is intent on using what look like user created forge maps for their public matchmaking. It's really unpolished.

We're not talking about every major release, we're talking about one particular release. Please stay on topic. And no one is saying marketing can't work.

I would know about it because I read forums and gaming sites and watch a couple YouTube channels that cover games and not just the big releases. I also use Steam and go through the list of suggestions it comes up with. Furthermore, your inability to name such a game after asking twice only reinforces my belief.

good god man read what I said.

every single release people sasy 'we are not talking about every other major release we are talking about this one'

re-read what i said.

PLEASE!

EVERY SINGLE TIME THIS HAPPENS PEOPLE LIKE YOU SAY 'IT NOT TRUE FOR THIS GAME'. which is exactly what you are saying right now

this game has had the full weight of Microsoft behind it for years, you can bet your ass that as almost always that marketing effort WILL WORK more so then a guy with $1000 making flyers!

That early access community lies to you then tryit. It was very much the E3 trailer that made WHF stand out a couple of years back.

Second, the usual fvck up is made by you. You say there are more creative/less creative games in Steam early access. Well who is the God that lays down the final word of what is or isn't more creative? You? LOL I don't live by your subjective views of entertainment. I live by my own.

I do read what you type, that's why I don't cut out a part that's inconvenient for me. Now read this, I DON'T CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE SAID TO YOU. They are not speaking for me and I am not speaking for them. I am very much not speaking about a conversation I have no direct knowledge of.

If this game has had the full weight of MS behind it for years, where are the millions of dollars of TV ads? Where are the inescapable banner ads for the past two years? Where are the books and toys? Where is the special edition Xbox and controller? Where is the fast food tie-in?

a fast food tie in for we happy few? that can't end well

What are you talking about? We Happy Few Happy Meal is a perfect match. Ronald McDonald with big eyes and a stretched out smile? How could that go wrong?

Dear lord, think of the children

or should I say the parents, those sleepless nights because ya kids got nightmares lol

Damn I was interested in this. I really didnt care for bioshock so I prob wont be into this. Metroid prime 3 was the last good fps adventure game I played

that 'community' didn't tell me anything.

how I know 'from the community' is a lack of interest in said game compared to many other titles.

Microsoft backed this company it appears since the start, the reason they even existed at E3 is because of Microsoft and if you think Microsoft back E3 Marketing presentation has no effect on peoples opinions then you are massively delusional.

I am going to say this just one more time.

1. Microsoft funded large marketing for this game from the very start

2. every time without fail when I point this out people LIKE YOU say EXACTY THE SAME THING YOU ARE SAYING RIGHT NOW.

they said it to me during the NMS hype religiously as an example, they said the REASON the game was hyped was NOT because of marketing. That is full blown amazing bullshit.

You do not understand how REAL marketing works. its NOT traditional advertising

Prove it.

@cainetao11

I am NOT saying there is a better game of its type in Steam. I was asking to build a POINT. Which is people like you ASSUME that if there was a better game it would naturally float to the top of the hype and would be all over the place.

and I am here to tell you THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS THAT IS FALSE ITS NOT REALITY

You assume Hype = relative quality and it does not at all whatsoever. Hype is MANUFACTURED in specific ways that you choose to ignore. I have played this rodeo many times, I have seen the suckers walk in many times, I have told the suckers many times but they keep doing it

'By E3 2016, where Microsoft presented We Happy Few as part of its press event'

what you think MS does press events out of charity?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Happy_Few

That's one thing, two years ago at an event MS does anyways, whether this game existed or not. That's not a "large marketing". You claimed the "full weight of Microsoft", prove it.

are you joking me?

yes it is.

look, as I have been down this rodeo before nearly exactly the same excuses you are making now.

GAMES DO NOT NATURALLY HYPE UP TO THE TOP OF THE LIST NATURALLY.

ITS ALMOST ALWAYS INTENTIONAL MARKETING THAT MAKES THAT HAPPEN.

PERIOD

CONVERSATION OVER

This myth that $100 in marketing is just as effective as $100,000 is god damn delusional.

this reminds me of a quote:

'its easier to scam people then to convince them they are being scammed'

marketing works and it working DEPENDS on people thinking it doesnt.

Nope, no joke. Huge marketing campaigns have things you can see, that's how they work. If you can't see it, it can't have an effect. Prove it.

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again Promotion of a game involves things like reaching out to journalists and convincing them to write an article, reaching out to top Youtubers to run videos.

hell for H1Z1 they even offered contracts to have youtubers wear T shirts and promote the game.

so hype is fucking man-u-factured.

LOL

LOL. And you can't see these flowery articles or overly positive youtube videos? And you think it costs millions to send emails? And you think it's impossible for articles to be written and videos to be made simply because the person finds the game interesting or they think their audience might have an interest and would like to know more?

@asylumni: give up. TryIt is unable to accept people can like stuff without marketing. Ironically, he seems to be the only person not affected by it

it doesnt cost millions to send emails but it does cost money.

which is why when you are talking about a developer who has ZERO marketing department vs one that is basically sponsored and promoted by Microsoft that it actually makes a difference.

in almost all cases, so called 'hype' is manufactured.

You read an article or see a video of a person talking about the 'hype' or 'all these people are saying' well that starts as basically a lie, which then convinces people its true who then get hyped and then there is real hype.

They dont just send emails, they call and make appointments and those meetings are well planned with flashy presentations. YES that costs money.

If it didnt work large companies would not be spending nearly 1/3 OF THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT BUDGET ON MARKETING

But you just said we can't see these things. Can we see them or not? Make up your mind.

no idea the context of your point.

I have illustrated to you explictly and in detail multiple times now how it works.

you choose to not believe it, you choose to believe that marketing really has no effect on hype and that the best games just naturally bubble up to the top out of magic.

its simply not how it works. It was likely more true in 20011 and earlier but with Steam releasing more than 7500 games a year its not realistically possible for the best to naturally bubble up to the top, the hype has to be manufactured which is absolutely a marketing stradgey

there is literally nothing more you can say that will not result in me just repeating these points a billionth time

EDIT: let me ask you this

Do you believe that spending more money on marketing doesnt work more than spending less?

You said we can't see the videos and articles that MS paid millions to have made and that they somehow still have influence. Then you said we can see them. Which is it?

of course not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what the hell?

read this part very closely

Steps

1. Call up a games journalist and invite them for you to come over and show you the cool game you are working on

2. Show up with a team of people and show them the game and use plenty of fancy buzz words and then give them a free pass to come see an event they are holding

3. pay hundred of thousand of dollars for a super fun event showing off specific games you are promoting

Now..ask yourself this question.

Exactly where would one 'see' those things happening? should I be waiting for the New York Times to give me a story outlining it? Showing me all the emails Gamespot gets from Promoters? as if (in your mind) promoting doesnt actually exist...really? doesnt exist?

Now ask yourself this next question:

You do understand that you are saying marketing does not affect the hype of the games, you are suggesting that if one spends $100 on marketing that is just as effective as one spending $100,000.

You are also saying that public events like E3 does NOT affect hype of games at all whatsoever.

really?

want proof as you call it? its called E3!!!!!!!!!!

So you're saying journalists are invited to and shown fancy ads that we don't see, then don't write articles or make any videos that we can see and this somehow gets us excited for the game? How does someone else's experience influence us if we don't even hear about it?

1. yes game journalists are invited to showing of the game (no adds but showing) that we do not see. that is well known.

2. 'dont write articles'? We Happy Few has a lot of articles written about it, most of them hyping it. would you like to see those articles pre-release?

You have a game, its unreleased, you want to go to E3, you dont have $10,000 to pay for a booth. How do you get a booth at E3?

you need...what?....FUNDING. where do you get funding? PUBLISHERS!

How does the game journalist site know about the games that were NOT at E3 if they spend all their time at E3?

the only reason (amazing game A) isnt at E3 for their unreleased game is because they dont have what? FUNDING

can I not believe I am having this conversation with a gamer who thinks publishers basically dont do anything effective

Most of the articles I've read about WHF have been about how disappointed people were with it after the E3 reveal in 2016 and it went into early access.

People were expecting a narrative heavy Bioshock game and ended up with busy work simualtor.

No amount of MS money was going to hype that.

lol..

flip flop

'People are really excited about this game because of E3 reveal paid for by Microsoft!'

'Articles are being written talking about how disappointing the game is after the reveal paid for by Microsoft'

articles I saw of which there were many where hyping the game, so now you are saying there really wasnt any hype? that its was disappointment? no wait let me guess!

disappointment but hyped about what it 'could' be. because you know 'could be' is so hard to do but how they got 'could be' was soooo unquie and awesome.

lol horseshit

Is this your final answer? You aren't going to change your mind? Then, yes, let's see these hyping articles.

to your argument that Marketing doesn't exist and/or is not effective depending on how much money you spend?

So to be clear, if I post 3 articles of hype for We Happy Few you will believe that Marketing does exist, that game Promotion does in fact exist, that E3 is actually a game promoting event and that amount of money spend on advertising does make a difference?

right?

ok stay tunned I will gather them and post here

Hype:

https://www.dualshockers.com/we-happy-fews-latest-trailer-fires-up-the-hype-engine/

Top 5?

https://mspoweruser.com/top-5-games-coming-to-xbox-one-next-week-include-we-happy-few-and-madden-nfl-19/

Hype:

https://www.tvovermind.com/video-games/anticipated-video-games

when a article says 'most anticipated' are you 100% sure you understand by WHO its 'most anticipated'

have you seen Out Foxed?

Here is what happened.

WHF was announced at E3 2016 with a brilliant trailer.

It went into EA and people were not happy as it was NOT what people were expecting.

The devs say okay... we hear you. we'll add more story

2 years pass and most people forget about it.

WHF release date comes around and people hope that it is what they wanted it to be and get hyped.

I turns out it's not what people wanted. It's a survival crafting game with story added to it to flesh it out. And on top of that it's full of bugs and plays like shit.

The fact MS announced that had bought the devs at E3 2018 had nothing to do with it.

Go back and read this 5 times before you reply.

either people are fucking insane or its marketing.

I mean seriously think about it

'people get incredibly hyped up about a video they saw of a game at E3 that was sponsored by Microsoft'

really? no bells ringing on that one? nothing

Then,

people playing the actual game are disappointed but then read something about what the developers want to do (which is what? 'add/improve a story' ok what story? how? crickets) and then people are super excited because 'a story will be added'? (what the ****???????????????)

then the game gets released and people are disapointed?

I dont know..maybe dont get super hyped about a developer saying 'we will improve the story' as if they just invited planetary landing

how about that?

the bottom line here is that the reason you even know We Happy Few is a game but you dont know that StarsOne is a game is because of marketing

No... the bottom line here is We Happy few is shit. And the trailer gave a false impression of how the game would end up.

Doesn't look as shit as that StarOne though. I just googled it thanks to your marketing and it looks like something that was shat out on to greenlight.

1. you just compared my marketing skills to be just as effective as Microsofts. do you have any idea how insane that logic is? a person name drops in a gaming forum is just as effective as a E3 Microsoft sponsored reveal? seriously?

2. NMS had the same issue, but they still sold a F ton.

If you are Brilliant Skies, Ltd and you do not have the money for an E3 booth there is a good chance that game journalists will never hear of you. radical?

and to quote my favorite quote ever on a gaming forum (paraphrased) 'That game (that isnt out yet and we have no information about it, no gameplay just a marketing trailer) is far better than that game you play (that we refuse to even consider)". that just shows how unbelievably biased and subjected so many people are. a game that literally has nothing other than a marketing trailer? seriously?

I think that was literally said in regards to CyperPunk game

We Happy Few sitting at 65 on Metacritic. Compulsion Games is gonna fit right in with Xbox's other 1st party studios. Sony is finished

@tryit: I think you're being over cynical here. Of course E3 is about marketing, just like every trailer ever made is marketing. That's the nature of both E3 and trailers. But I'm guessing also that every single developer on earth would love to have its game at E3, it's the greatest videogame show in the world, the biggest platform.

At E3 you have hundreds of games hoping to be noticed. Even with the big press conferences you have a multitude of games being shown but only a few get the spotlight. Some because they are just too big to fail but most really hope to get an honest and positive enough feedback to get to the next level.

WHF was among those smaller games that happened to get a good reaction from the gaming community while many others were quickly forgotten. Marketing it's not magic, if it was all the other games would achieve similar visibility. WHF had the merit of selling a concept and then failed to impress everyone. But people were sold on that concept, so naturally they hoped that the developers would be able to turn the game around. And many reviewers still think the game has its merits regardless of the absolute clusterfuck of technical issues.

Just like NMS got a genuine response because on paper it was the game that almost every sci-fi fan dreamed about, and that made both Sony and MS try to get the game.

I just don't get why you have this obsession with marketing when there's merit too when a small developer manages to get visibility when many others fail. Hell, my most anticipated game this gen is Below. It got the same or even more marketing exposure than most small games and yet nobody cares about it. I wish marketing alone was enough.

MS strategy is brilliant. They're stacking up on cheap developers so that 3 or 4 games from different devs can add up to score above one Sony game. If they buy enough devs they might actually achieve it.

1. however....features that game suggested ALREADY EXISTED and where good even in their incomplete state in other games and where solid, but a lot of people (like yourself) were simply not aware of them and refused to think otherwise.

NMS released a video of a ship landing on a planet, no commentary, short, nothing much else.

The internet was suggested to have 'gone wild' over NMS and what that game was, however, if one was to ask 'ok what are the features' nobody really knew.

landing a planet at the time in mainstream was a big thing, but a lot of indies had already done it. so how did that little video really get all that attention?

I had a person literally say that CyberPunk game is better (the one that isnt out yet and we only have a non-game play trailer for) then all the indie games I play. How biased and blind does a person have to be?

2. The equation is really simple, journalists send their people out to E3. they write articles about games at E3. they likely dont have time to write article about games that are not at E3. But you cant get into E3 unless you are willing to pay the money. so where does the money from your unreleased game come from? it comes from promoters.

If you are Eleon Game Studios and you do not buy a booth at E3 you are likely to not get as much hype for your game

not reall rocket science here, not really tin foil hat.

I'm glad it scored poorly. It means at least some games journalists are being critical for a change. Also because I'm so chock full to the brim of the miserable, macabre and moody in game themes.

@tryit: Lol dude, but that's the nature of a reveal trailer to generate buzz, not to go into detail. But again, almost every single game does this yet most fail. And there's a way to get into E3, or other smaller events. Make a game that's appealing enough to get someone willing to support your game. Sell your ideas and concepts, get to know people in the industry, that's how Indies get shown at big stages.

I get it's not ideal, but having an E3 that ends up showing thousands and thousands of games, like if it was STEAM would be unrealistic.. and a shitstorm, to be honest.

absolutely positively not true

Having your game shown at E3 with Microsoft sponsoring it is LIGHT years away from an indie dev posting his video on his channel that only 4 people have even seen.

again..what is with this 'marketing doesnt really work' argument or the suggestion that its all the same and that money doesnt matter...OF COURSE IT DOES! getting a spot at E3 Microsoft event is not the same thing as a developer posting a video on fucking Steam

The video of NMS at the time of the hype compared to other titles that were already out was a bonafide POS but most people like yourself had no clue because you have never even heard of the games in question.

Finally! So let's look at this evidence, shall we? Here's the text of the first hype article,

A new game-play trailer has today been released for the upcoming survival horror epic We Happy Few.

The trailer features game-play and narration, and it sets the stage for the events of the intriguing game. The game appears to be heavily inspired by the Bioshockseries, with its bright color palette, vintage designs and “dystopia disguised as an utopia” setting. The trailer also includes a quote from DualShockers’ own Ryan Meitzler; read his full preview of We Happy Few here.

Players eager to sample Wellington Wells can get early access now via Steam, The Humble Store andGOG.com, while Xbox One players can check out the preview via Xbox Live. See the new trailer below.

That makes you excited for the game and want to rush to buy it? It reads more like a dry description of the trailer to me. The only positive adjective is "intriguing". No 'good', 'great', 'fun', etc

The second is a list of games that are releasing on Xbox One that week. Also listed and described are Dead Cells and City of the Shroud. Are you saying those publishers are also spending millions on advertising? That a MS focused site has no other reason to list the games that release each week, regardless of the publisher?

Finally, we have "20 Anticipated Video Games That Could Live up to Their Hype". Do you really think the publishers of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Code Vein, Extinction and Vampyr can afford to spend as much (or more since they're listed before We Happy Few) on advertising?

Do you really think that reporters can not even mention a game unless their paid to do so by the publisher? That they can't, on their own, be trying to inform their readers?