Does hype ruin a game?

[endtherapture]

I've been thinking recently that hype can ruin a game for me.

I had such high expectations for Arkham City, but it felt underwhelmed by the short story. However I went into Asylum with no expectations and came out amazed by the game.

In comparison, Portal 1 came out of nowhere and surprised everyone and it is universally acclaimed.

I have a feeling hype will ruin Skyrim for me, after everyone on here hailing it as the second coming of christ - after all the hype, when I finally get round to finally playing the game i might be disappointed.

What is your opinion on this matter? Can overhyping a game just completely ruin it?

 

[Something Amyss]

Expectations and hype are not necessarily the same. I think your expectations are ruining things more than the hype itself.

Then again, there is hype so much that the second coming of Christ wouldn't live up, so yeah, sometimes the hype itself can be toxic.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

Only if you allow it to.

It's pretty much up to your personal level of hype tolerance.

 

[VaudevillianVeteran]

I second the Arkham City observation. I genuinely enjoyed and loved it but it was slightly dampened by the hype. Too much hype can definitely make things overrated.

 

[endtherapture]

I feel like I always get the best experiences out of games when I'm not really excited for them.

The Witcher for example I had heard all about it's flaws but decided to try it out anyway, and I ended up having a great time.

With Arkham City the game had been hyped up by everyone to have an amazing campaign and be better than the first game, however I feel that it fell short of the bar set by Arkham Asylum and all the marketing of the game by Rocksteady and WB and all the reviewers.

On the other hand, I was aware that Half Life 2 was an amazing game, but I wasn't really "hyped" for it. I picked it up randomly in a Steam sale last Christmas, and went through it and had an AMAZING time.

 

[Rawne1980]

Hype for a game and a persons expectations are 2 different things.

Skyrim was hyped to hell but those of us who have been fans of the series knew what to expect. It is a great game and it's one i'll put many hours into especially when I can create mods for it but it's not the "replace your family" type game some people hail it as.

SW:TOR has been hyped to hell.

I've been in the beta for it for quite a while now and I do sigh when I see people hailing that one as the second coming of MMO's.

 

[Plucky]

After Spore, ive learnt not to take toa game's hype too seriously, in the end of the day, my brother bought spore and i tried it for like an hour, from the cell phase upto the tribal phase...never played it again and the other brothers used up the installs, the computers with the installs? they were probably formatted.

 

[Arkvoodle]

From official sources, not always.

From the fanbase, almost certainly. The massive amount of topics devoted to Skyrim here have begun to sour my opinion of that series.

 

[Kriptonite]

I had that same feeling when it came to Dead Island. I heard so many good things about it! When I actually tried it, I was hugely disappointed. I have to say though, I really do enjoy Skyrim. It just incorporates many things I like about RPG's and it leaves out things I dislike about MMO's. So, yea, I kind of agree with you.

 

[4RM3D]

Hype has nothing to do with the game itself, unless you are talking about multiplayer games, where the hype attracts all kind of "unwanted" players.

Having expectations is another thing, which can be based on a hype. But thats indirectly related.

To answer your question: No, hype can not ruin a game (IMO).

 

[babinro]

I find that the hype going into Skyward Sword, Uncharted 3 and Skyrim lead to much higher expectations than what I experienced. These games are still excellent, but were also disappointing because of how I felt going into them.

I wouldn't say hype ruins a game though as it's a driving force behind my purchasing a title and being confident the game will be good. The only strongly hyped title that I can remember hating was GTA4.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Only if you allow it to I guess.

There hasn't been a single game that lived up to the hype, mainly because the players don't understand what the developers are trying to achieve, and/or ask impossible things of the game.

 

[krazykidd]

Yes , yes it can . And it will if you let it , i personally never follow the hype for any game , once a game starts getting hype , i avoid anything to do with it like the plague . Why? Because by following hype my expectations become too high and i almost always come out of it disappointed . I haven't look at a skyrim thread yet ,spoilers or not . Because i don't want to know what people think of it , thus not influencing my expectations.

 

[Sixcess]

SW:TOR has been hyped to hell.

I've been in the beta for it for quite a while now and I do sigh when I see people hailing that one as the second coming of MMO's.

TOR was the first thing I thought of when I read the title of this thread.

It's not a bad game, but 3 years of constantly hearing about how it's the next generation of MMOs hasn't left me inclined to be lenient in my views on it. There's going to be a lot of schadenfreude on display if TOR doesn't perform to expectations (and I don't think it will) and they've brought it on themselves.

 

[brunothepig]

If you let other peoples opinions shape your own, that's your fault. I've never understood how hype ruins things for people. Sure, the opinions of my friends plays a role in what games I buy, but when I do buy them I judge them on their own merits. Hype just doesn't seem to affect me...

 

[Madshadow]

Depends per game, for example Uncharted 3 and Arkham City i took an effort not to look up to many movies/trailers and such because i wanted to be surprised. Other games which disappointed me where LA Noir

Hype nowadays can ruin it more then it used to but it's because the fans are rilling each other up as well. That and more people game nowadays.

GTA V will disappoint me because it does look better yet feels the same as it's predecessors. To me that is not enough change but then again perhaps there is a neat surprise in that game which make me like it but won't find out after it's been released. But after a while i only focus more on story and setting no real need for epic trailers and I'll be entertained.

 

[Rawne1980]

SW:TOR has been hyped to hell.

I've been in the beta for it for quite a while now and I do sigh when I see people hailing that one as the second coming of MMO's.

TOR was the first thing I thought of when I read the title of this thread.

It's not a bad game, but 3 years of constantly hearing about how it's the next generation of MMOs hasn't left me inclined to be lenient in my views on it. There's going to be a lot of schadenfreude on display if TOR doesn't perform to expectations (and I don't think it will) and they've brought it on themselves.

Like you say it is a good game but it isn't the greatest MMO of all time.

As people call Fallout 3 and NV an FPS with RPG elements, SW:TOR is an RPG with MMO elements.

The only thing that seperates TOR from any other MMO is the massive story line quests.

Every quest has it's own cinematic (apart from bonus quests, bounty quests and heroics picked up from terminals).

Now while they are great and it is obvious people put a lot of time and effort into it the basics of the game and the core mechanics are very similar to everything we have seen before.

The talent tree's leave a lot to be desired, they are very basic.

Space combat is just your basic rail shooter, it does kill a few minutes but it isn't amazingly awesome.

I have enjoyed what i've seen in the beta and I will be playing it when it goes live but I take it for what it is, a good game. Not the greatest but good enough to have fun with.

It has had a lot of hype and before I got in the beta I was just as much hyped as it's biggest fan. I have a feeling, just like you said, that a lot of people are going to be left disappointed when it doesn't live up to what they are expecting.

They had a poll on the forums for people to give it a rating between 1 and 10. I gave it a 6 going on to a 7 purely because it is good but doesn't offer anything we haven't seen before besides the quest lines.

I won't call it a WoW clone exactly it feels more like an older MMO along the lines of EQ or DAoC, it's not as simplified as WoW and after level 30 it can get quite difficult.

PvP is fun though for a none e-sport thing. If you do decide to play and like PvP you need to have a game of Huttball. It's a "capture the flag" kind of thing but it's a giggle.