Hype

[Epailes]

When I played Fable 2, I was disappointed with it because of all the expectations I had built up of it, due to all the hype and publicity it had received, so I learnt my lesson and avoided all hype surrounding Fable 3, and thoroughly enjoyed it due to that.

Has anyone else ever had hype/publicity spoil a game for them, either by getting their expectations too high or through spoilers? Or have you ever avoided hype around a specific game/ all games in general?

 

[Mittens The Kitten]

Not really, i follow hype religiously and ive never had a game experience be worse off because of it.

 

[Palademon]

How do you manage to avoid hype, btw?
I often can't because I become interested in a lot of things I'm considering buying.
Maybe I should just not watch anything with Molyneux in it to avoid disappointment.

Did you feel bad about Fable 3 if you compared it to previous ones?

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I don't let hype raise my expectations. My expectations are based on the articles written by 3rd party journalists.

 

[Woodsey]

I avoid it, and I now avoid people like those who "followed" Alan Wake, then said it didn't live up to the hype. Well, what hype? We knew the game was coming for 5 years, we barely got any information on it during that time. Its just stupid - you'd expect people to be able to control themselves a little better.

 

[Stammer]

Yep, I admittedly have. My first true experience with it would definitely have to be Spore. Maxis hyped and publicized the game into another dimension. And then even though it took them like 10 years to make they ended up having to cut a ton of corners and release a truly mediocre game.

But there's a lot of other hype out there that I wish I didn't hop onto... Arkham Asylum, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, inFamous. All of these games I bought because everyone was like "OMGZ ITS SO AWESOME" and I ended up either not liking it or just not even being able to play it.

 

[shadyh8er]

Killzone 2. A thousand times, Killzone 2. A friend recommended it to me on the basis that it was "Gears of War in FPS form." I thought to myself "A cover system in an FPS? It will be interesting to see how that works!"

It didn't.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I usually avoid hype, but Catherine suckered me in with the guessing game about a localization. So, I'll see in a few months whether the hype will leave me disappointed.

 

[kampori]

Well, Hype gets me excited for games, sure, but I never let myself be tricked into believing false hope and promises. (looking at you,Molyneux)

But I enjoy hype. The public excitement for anything is a good and fun thing.

For now, I'm hyped about Star Wars: The Old Republic, and ME:3.

 

[Epailes]

How do you manage to avoid hype, btw?
I often can't because I become interested in a lot of things I'm considering buying.
Maybe I should just not watch anything with Molyneux in it to avoid disappointment.

Did you feel bad about Fable 3 if you compared it to previous ones?

I just don't look at all the trailers for a game or "exclusive interviews" and the lot.
I can generally tell if I will like a game or not when I hear about what kind of game it is, and then decide when I'm holding the box if it's worth my money.

I preferred it to Fable II, just improved on what they done before, and I never played the first Fable.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Hyped spoiled...

-Modern Warfare 2

-GTA4

 

[Palademon]

I just don't look at all the trailers for a game or "exclusive interviews" and the lot.
I can generally tell if I will like a game or not when I hear about what kind of game it is, and then decide when I'm holding the box if it's worth my money.

I preferred it to Fable II, just improved on what they done before, and I never played the first Fable.

That's an interesting trend I keep noticing. Most people I know who played the first Fable think they are continually making it worse and more watered down, whereas people who only started at the second, think they're getting better, and they never play the first one.

 

[Epailes]

That's an interesting trend I keep noticing. Most people I know who played the first Fable think they are continually making it worse and more watered down, whereas people who only started at the second, think they're getting better, and they never play the first one.

If that's the case I might just try out Fable 1 to see if it's superior to it's offspring, and find out what that does to my opinion of them.

 

[timeadept]

Golden Sun Dark Dawn. I was pretty excited to see this sequel to what might be my favorite game ever (it's definitely in the top 3 but those tend to swap places now and then). But after EIGHT YEARS OF WAITING in hope of a sequel (that was set up at the end of the original) I was rewarded with a game that was a step down. It didn't get better with age, it got worse. The thing is, the game isn't bad... the gameplay is exactly the same, i didn't really expect that to change because i was more excited to see the STORY continue. The thing is... they pretty much don't care that the fans of the original game are 8 years OLDER now. And again, the game is 8 years old so unless you were a fan of the original you probably don't know a thing about the series.

But in any case, i feel like the story was written for an age group that was even younger than mine when i played the original. I didn't get very far because i was so let down (and something about missing my only chance to get every dijinn). But an old villain has returned and a hero from the first game doesn't recognize him because he has half a mask covering his face! Granted, 40 years have passed, but when you save the world you don't exactly forget the person who was the cause of all the trouble. I mean i haven't after 8 years and i wasn't even there. Also, some of the heroes from the first game have managed to get shallower with age. Like Isaac (the main protagonist from the first game who never spoke till the 2nd half) is not inexplicably religious, worshiping a being from the first game who tried to stop them from saving the world by turning isaac's father and i think Jenna's parents into a giant three headed dragon and making him fight them, he damn near almost killed them too.

So yeah, this game is so old that only the fans would be excited about it, those fans are now 8 years older and yet they write the game for an age group even younger than the first ones. WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DESIGN AND MARKET THE GAME TO AN OLDER AGE GROUP? And no, i'm not calling or a "gritty reboot" of golden sun. Just a game that's 8 years more mature as opposed to 2 years more immature.

Sorry, seems that i've gone and started ranting here.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

No, hype never really makes me disappointed in a game. I can see how it would for some though. Many a times have I heard friends and colleagues rant and rave when something they are passionate for is on the way. That's all well and good until they start letting their brains run wild with what they think it will be like.

After many years of my youth spent buying and playing games, I have come to terms with the industry. They are not here to make what I want, they are here to make what they think a majority of us wants (some exceptions exist of course). Due to this, I will never get the perfect incarnation of my favourite game.

So does that mean I don't hype myself up when the latest trailer for epicawesomegame 2 comes out? Course not, I will lap it up and dance around like a some sort of pagan ritualist and praise the forces that be that I'm still alive to see it. I will then proceed to wait patiently as little tidbits of info trickle out over the coming weeks. By the time of release I will have a good idea of how the game is shaping up to be. Before I buy the game I will read reviews to see if any reflect my sentiments of what I have seen thus far. If its generally favourable then I will most likely buy it. The likely hood of me being disappointed by it now is slim at best.

I read into games I'm looking forward too but I will base my final decision on reviews. If the review doesn't capture me, or the reveals of the game left me yawning then I will avoid it.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I've had my experience ruined by hype too many times that now if there's a game that I really want to play I try not to get this image in my head on how awesomely amazing that game will be.

Yeah I will get excited about it and act like a complete dork when I hear new things about it, but I won't let it influence my gaming expectations of it. If I'm hearing that the game is total shit from reviews and friends that have played it before I have, then I will either ignore that game or buy it later in the bargain bin.

 

[DustyDrB]

Hype has no effect on how much I enjoy the game [footnote]And it peeves me when people give Fable II the excuse "I only didn't like it because I listened to the hype". [/footnote]. I may have expectations for a game, and if it doesn't meet those then I will be very disappointed. Take Fable II, for instance. I hadn't really been into gaming much for a year before it came out and only knew it was released when I saw it in a store. So I bought it because I loved the first game, and expected the sequel to have certain things. But the changes to the combat destroyed the game for me. The changes to leveling (discouraging players from going with a focused build, and pushing them to be a jack-of-all-trades) were just as bad. There were many other things I hated, but those two top the list. The second game failed to live up to the expectations I had from playing and loving the first game.

Hype, to me is two things: Hype from marketing and hype from a fanbase. I've never hated a game because it wasn't how people told me it would be or because they had elevated it to an impossible to live up to status. Okami and Earthbound are two games I've played recently that get near universal acclaim, but they didn't disappoint me.

 

[Armored Prayer]

I was hyped into most Valve games and was greatly disappointed. It was not the games fault though they were all enjoyable, but its fanbase greatly overhyped it thus leaving me slightly dissatisfied when I actually played them.

Now I avoid most hype created by the fans.

 

[Epailes]

Golden Sun Dark Dawn. -SNIP-

I didn't even know there was a sequel, need to look into it, even if it is really bad.

And it is disappointing when a game studio doesn't try to appeal to it's own fanbase if what you say is correct.

And it peeves me when people give Fable II the excuse "I only didn't like it because I listened to the hype"

I will say that I enjoyed Fable 2, it was just that I was expecting so much more, a better combat system, a world where I feel a the effects of all the decisions I made and ect ect...

 

[AlternatePFG]

Hype killed Smash Bros. Brawl for me. I never got hyped for a game afterwards, ever.