The Point - Is Marketing Killing the Wonder of Games?

Actually, I enjoy reading and watching game review websites - such as GameSpot - more than playing the very games they review. For instance, The Last of Us has gotten rave reviews, but I don't want to play an ultra violent game like that. Same goes for games with homosexual interactions or with strip bars and adult language such as GTA5 or WatchDogs. Amazing tech but lousy games. I'm glad to know ahead of time what is in these games.

I final give praise to a Danny vid.

I remember going to the store and picking out a game I knew nothing about that I still play at least once per year since its purchase. That game is Xenogears.

As for marketing, its fine but companies like EA/Bioware make me sick. They cross the line and do ruin the experience.

I've known this for a while. Then again I'm not going to put the blame entirely on press because let's face it.. Consumers'd bi tch about there not being enough information available.. then rage when they got their hands on it and say they weren't informed enough to make a sound decision and wasted their money. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Fantastic video Danny. Also... I need to find this tree that grows laptops, I really need one.

I got games like Tenchu, Final Fantasy 7, and Metal Gear Solid off of nothing but back cover art and word of mouth, so you can imagine my answer to this is easily, yes.

Almost feels like I already played the game before opening the package these days. And with so many "betas", we literally already have.

Wish i could paste a comment i made a few years ago proclaiming how over coverage of AAA games has diminished their value. Look at today you cant go to a game site without another Smash Brothers something, or Assassins Creed previewx10 EVERYDAY. I really could care less if i ever play another AAA title as inides, FTP and Mods continue to produce excellent if not better experiences and most i only know about from Steam recommendations, or word of mouth.

Currently playing Lost Alpha(S.t.a.l.k.e.r. mod), Ghost Recon Phantoms, and Violett.

Without listening to the vid : YES. I've been playing games for around 25 years and since magazines are now dead we know way too much way too early. Even watching let's play on YouTube kill the fun of playing it because you already too much.

I remember when looking atNintendo power and wondering oh great or interesting a game will be after reading some text a few blurry pictures ... especially the issue after E3

<RTD>

you nailed it! that trailer wasn't even an in-game trailer either.

Great Point, Danny. I remember over-saturating myself with details about Final Fantasy 8 before it came out and then being sorely disappointed. Since then, I've avoided reading too far into the details from previews. Final Fantasy 13 was an experience where I avoided the previews and was disappointed even worse. Maybe the expectations aren't that big of a factor because the subtleties of our video games provide the Fresh and Memorable experience.

Yeah definitely I've been feeling this for a while. In fact I more often than not outright refuse to open any article related to the game I'm interested in till I've got the game in my hands. I did that with Dark Souls II, am currently doing it with Witcher 3. Will likely do it more in future because if I'd had an incling that Dark Souls II was going to be like it was i.e. not quite as good as Dark Souls I, I'd have been really annoyed and possibly would have delayed buying the game.

But instead I got the game found this out by myself and managed to savour the best parts about the game without the prior knowledge of the game corrupting my experience.

A big part about any game is the anticipation of playing the game.

Completely agree with this. I realize this may be the cause for my intense lack of interest in gaming right now.
Maybe I should stop visiting these news sites for a while.

People looked at Watch Dogs. At first they didn't know what the game was then when they showed more trailers and the gameplay people began hyping the game out, but then by the game came out it was not as appealing as they said in the trailers. Thus Watch Dogs was a disappointing game same thing that happened with Titainfall. Now that begs the question "Is Hype ruining games?"

Media over saturation is killing gaming. Its this quest to know how the sausage is made that's really destroying it. Its why I like Nintendo games. Even if the 'plot' is thin, it doesn't matter because gameplay has always been king for them.

This media over saturation is also affecting consoles. Remember all the Nintend00med stuff? It even was asked if it was dead here. All because its 'underpowered'. Our insistence to open up the machines and to find out what the hardware stats are is only ruining the enchantment. Instead of grabbing a gamepad and trying out a game for yourself, people are looking at console stats like that tells the whole story. Its something that I find despicable about gaming in recent years. You can argue that this argument has happened since the SNES/Genesis, but it wouldn't blow up without internet and media all talking about it.

Man, that outtro...I was going to say it's worth its weight in gold, but in reality, it's priceless. #ThanksRyan

As for the topic at hand...yes. This is one of the reasons I fell in love with Risk of Rain. I got some word of mouth, a trailer, and jumped straight in. And discovering new items, levels, and unlocking the character classes was an absolute blast.

This is part of the reason people like the Souls games so much.

Nowadays though people want to know what theyre spending their money on. No one wants to drop 60 bucks on something they might not like.

But i agree, i much prefer learning the game from playing it.

Discovery, one of the the main things that makes games great, is almost non existent today's game releases. I just hope there's a turn around in AAA games at some point soon.

Best example of the current industry: Demon's Souls. Very little marketing, managed to turn in to one of the best and most popular game franchises, just because of it's critical acclaim, and the fact that it was a DAMN GOOD GAME. Nowadays devs love to show off everything they can offer during E3. You already know exactly what you're going in to when you will be buying Far Cry 4, you've already seen what it's like. Thus giving it less value at launch, at least for me.

These days I never buy at launch. Why? Because there is no curiosity fueling my interest. I already know exactly what I'm buying, and very few games actually entice me through marketing to the point of an actual purchase.

It's best to just completely ignore reviews and critics, and E3 gameplay reveals. Everything else is just marketing tactics that are fairly beneficial (they don't give up much of the game's mechanics, story or purposes).

The easy and free access to faqs, individual game wikis, etc. through the internet did that.

When all you had were magazines and strategy guides you had to pay for, it was a very different experience.

the answer to the question posed in this video is thus:

yes

na'am (Arabic)

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oui

haan ji

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YEEEESSSS!

it's why i go into media blackout from gaming sites -giving too much away AND the near constant gender politics injecting.

Awesome piece Danny......Thanks for the shout out to Ryan Davis. That was a classy gesture.

Movies are suffering from this, too; almost as much as games. I *swear* the trailer for Edge of Tomorrow revealed, like, 90% of that entire movie's plot. Chronologically, too. Urgh.

So so glad this subject was brought up. This is something that has annoyed me for so long, and I often felt like it was just me being all old school or something. There is nothing like finding a game that you know truly very little about and feeling that immense satisfaction when you realise it rocks. Then the first thing you do is tell everyone about it and try to convince them to buy it! Then word of mouth takes care of all the promotion a company could want surely?

This is what happened to me when I played Fallout 3 for the first time. I'd had a big break in gaming and this was the first game I played on my Xbox 360, after I'd chosen a few games of the shelf at random. And when I first left Vault 101 and realised what the game was and what I was in for, it blew me away. This is a feeling I've tried to recapture time and time again and failed. I mean, it's my fault as I'm the one searching for gameplay, trailers, etc. but companies should hold back. But I guess the pressures of pre-orders will mean it rarely happens again.

No Man's Sky seems to be the first game in a while to have that sense of wonder surrounding it and I hope it remains that way with just a few teases here and there.

And imagine how much better it would have been to play the likes of Skyrim, The Last of Us and so on, if we'd not known much about them. What a find they would have been!

I do miss the surprise i used to get with games back in the day. I used to choose games based only off the cover art or just cool sounding names, games like Ristar, Ecco the dolphin, Golden Axe, Streets of rage, Metal Gear Solid etc, i never really found myself disappointed by games as we didn't get the insane over-hype like we see now and fancy CGI trailers etc. But then again.....Superman 64...i knew far too little.

Thanks again Danny, you are the reason I keep coming to this site ;)

Yes they give away way too much! The same with movies and tv show finales, the trailers show you WAY too much. Now, when we see a trailer that doesn't reveal everything, we assume it's a teaser. THE TEASER SHOULD BE THE TRAILER!

Aw you had to remind us of Ryan Davis...

Dark Souls is a prime example of this. There are plenty of people who cry and whine they don't know what to do, how to do things, how things work and the like. Instead of exploring, taking the time to figure things out, and using the built in multiplayer mechanic that is and was revolutionary and unique, they whine and cry about it because it doesn't have a cookie cutter, led by the hand experience that conforms to the current trend. In various aspects of gameplay, mechanics, and lore. Most don't know just how extensive and robust the lore is.

At least a lot of people 'perceive' that.

Great video.