This entire thread is a psychological experiment for the sake of me as well as gaming as an industry. By viewing this thread, you have devoted time to reading this off of only one bit of knowledge of what it is about. Similarly, with games, all you have is a name.
One might respond by saying "we get screenshots, trailers, dev interviews, previews, reviews, advertisement and more" but in order, why these are not good means of determining whether a game is worth your time.
Screenshots are, more than half the time, taken from cinimatics. Some screenshots are taken from parts that won't be in the final game. Some are taken of explosions, but very few if any at all actually do any good telling you how much fun a game will be. Gameplay screenshots don't come out until very soon before the game is released and even then, they only show certain points in a game when there will inevitably be worse parts.
Trailers are even worse than screenshots. A game's trailer can take the Halo approach and explain everything in depth, but it is still their idea of it, they can take the Fallout approach and tell you very little, they can take the Borderlands approach of shear comedy, but no matter what approach they take, it is still what the developers want you to see. What they think will make you buy the game. They don't show you the boring parts which generally drag on for much longer than the fun ones, and they simply show you the game through a keyhole, maybe a shiny colorful keyhole, but when you open the door, you can still find that that was the glint of a rusting bicycle when you were expecting a gleaming porche.
Dev Interviews are limited at best. The developer generally gives scripted answers and when they are caught off guard they either make excuses or blame the marketing department. They never say everything you want, or maybe don't want, but need to hear to know whether the game is good.
Previews are always, one hundred percent of the time, positive. Game Informer did a couple months of preview hype for Army of Two: Fortieth Day, but when it was released, they gave it a 6.5 thus proving that their preview was extremely heavily biased.
Advertisements are just the marketing department yell "oh oh look at me! see! see! isn't it cool!" and jump up and down. The Dante's Inferno commercial at the Superbowl barely showed anything.
The point I am trying to make is, gamers have recently needed to acquire an insane 6th sense of which games are actually good. Like clicking into this thread, you don't actually know what you are going to get until the credits roll. Every person who reads this read it simply because it has a funny name. That LOLcats like appeal is what lets the industry get away with this kind of "selling it" where the buyer is unaware of anything until the money is gone.
A good game won't need that. A good game will sell off of quality alone, but a good, unadvertised game will barely scratch the surface because the insane hyping quota can't be met by new or small devs. Gamers need to check before buying big name titles, and watch the little ones because they generally are fun to just watch. Even if the game isn't perfect, being able to say "I knew them before they were big" is always fun to say and their quality doesn't come from cheap parlor tricks.
Just keep this stuff in mind next time you buy a game.
One might respond by saying "we get screenshots, trailers, dev interviews, previews, reviews, advertisement and more" but in order, why these are not good means of determining whether a game is worth your time.
Screenshots are, more than half the time, taken from cinimatics. Some screenshots are taken from parts that won't be in the final game. Some are taken of explosions, but very few if any at all actually do any good telling you how much fun a game will be. Gameplay screenshots don't come out until very soon before the game is released and even then, they only show certain points in a game when there will inevitably be worse parts.
Trailers are even worse than screenshots. A game's trailer can take the Halo approach and explain everything in depth, but it is still their idea of it, they can take the Fallout approach and tell you very little, they can take the Borderlands approach of shear comedy, but no matter what approach they take, it is still what the developers want you to see. What they think will make you buy the game. They don't show you the boring parts which generally drag on for much longer than the fun ones, and they simply show you the game through a keyhole, maybe a shiny colorful keyhole, but when you open the door, you can still find that that was the glint of a rusting bicycle when you were expecting a gleaming porche.
Dev Interviews are limited at best. The developer generally gives scripted answers and when they are caught off guard they either make excuses or blame the marketing department. They never say everything you want, or maybe don't want, but need to hear to know whether the game is good.
Previews are always, one hundred percent of the time, positive. Game Informer did a couple months of preview hype for Army of Two: Fortieth Day, but when it was released, they gave it a 6.5 thus proving that their preview was extremely heavily biased.
Advertisements are just the marketing department yell "oh oh look at me! see! see! isn't it cool!" and jump up and down. The Dante's Inferno commercial at the Superbowl barely showed anything.
The point I am trying to make is, gamers have recently needed to acquire an insane 6th sense of which games are actually good. Like clicking into this thread, you don't actually know what you are going to get until the credits roll. Every person who reads this read it simply because it has a funny name. That LOLcats like appeal is what lets the industry get away with this kind of "selling it" where the buyer is unaware of anything until the money is gone.
A good game won't need that. A good game will sell off of quality alone, but a good, unadvertised game will barely scratch the surface because the insane hyping quota can't be met by new or small devs. Gamers need to check before buying big name titles, and watch the little ones because they generally are fun to just watch. Even if the game isn't perfect, being able to say "I knew them before they were big" is always fun to say and their quality doesn't come from cheap parlor tricks.
Just keep this stuff in mind next time you buy a game.
