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Returnal is a great game, not without it's flaws of course but great nonetheless. HouseMarque and Sony debuted the announcement trailer on June 11,2020 at the Future of Gaming Show online, and it came out less than a year later. I think this method creates more hype than the alternative which debuts trailers years in advance with only speculation of a release date or actual gameplay. Think Biomutant, Elder Rings, or even Cyberpunk. I believe if you have a game almost ready for release, then you should show it off a year prior, not several or more. I believe this kills all hype and proves to disappoint especially if a game doesn't live up to the hype. Let me know what you think.
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There are two acceptable ways to announce a game. Either the God of War way, a live 10-minute demo (came out >18 months later), or how they did it with returnal, demons souls, miles, sack boy, and Astro, announce it, then release it within 12 months.
ID: gwn47lsID: gwn47p8I loved fallout 4. It’s a Bethesda game so obviously it’ll be broken no matter what but I loved that it released only like 4 months after the announcement.
ID: gwn4emzSadly these days we're waiting for games Bethesda announced back in 2018/2019 and they keep getting delayed.
ID: gwn4akwReally? Only 4. Never followed Bethesda so I am unaware. But that’s awesome!
ID: gwow76qFallout 4 is the gold standard for sequels in my opinion. Regardless of what I thought of the game, the idea that it was releasing so soon after reveal had me more hyped than almost any other game. I think it's partly because everybody knew there was going to be a sequel just like we know fallout 6 will happen eventually, it's just a matter of when.
ID: gwng8cvIt’s probably happening this year with most of the zenimax games because they didn’t want to jeopardize the deal w Microsoft by announcing a game early / let Xbox decide what they want to do with it.
Maybe with covid impacting the work places as well we could see a lot more like that... technically I’d still consider elden ring to be that way since we haven’t seen proper gameplay.
ID: gwpedplEh, I’d say the whole a yeah were working on another
is fine. Like Bayonetta 3 or Metroid Prime 4, we know they are projects that exist but thats it, zero hype. What pisses me off is when the do the massively overdone cinematic or fake gameplay (like Ubi likes to do) and then the damn game isn’t out for years.
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I also think the reception had something to do with the amount of coverage of the game before hand. There were articles here and there that mentioned it was an upcoming game and the closer it got to release(within a few weeks) some outlets were putting up videos of “first X minutes of gameplay” but not much else. Not a lot of real details were out there that I saw.
Some of these other big games get jammed down your throat like it’s oxygen. “Everything you need to know” “the next X title killer” “the be all end of of this or that genre” “here’s a bunch of funko pops of all the character” “collectors editions? Here 40 different version of collectors editions!” Outlets publish so much detail about the game you can pretty much feel like you’ve already played it before it even releases. Those games hype become larger than life and often wind up disappointing players because they were prepped for it to be the greatest thing they’ve ever experienced only to find out it’s just a video game.
Returnal wound up pleasantly surprising players and critics because they didn’t know what to expect and got to experience something a little outside of the norm. They got a breath of fresh air. I wish outlets would do this with most games but in reality they get paid by views and clicks so they’re not going to stop doing what makes them money. I personally don’t read any information on games that I look forward to or think might be good for this exact reason. If I go in with no expectations and the game is decent I’m not disappointed. But when a game is better than average I’m pleasantly surprised.
ID: gwn97iwI 100% agree with this. So many gets get overexposed by media and they end up mediocre or crap while so many good games barely get any publicity because it's not a 15yr old IP.
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"I think this method creates more hype than the alternative.."
Really? I saw like no hype for this game until this month, especially the last two weeks. The Returnal subreddit didn't even break 100 people until just a couple months ago (now it's 10k). People were constantly throwing shade at this game: "not worth $70" or "looks bland." The negativity often times outstripped the positivity.
That said, I followed this game very closely. Daily. The only thing that really mattered for this game's hype was the preview and review period. This game went from a drip to a tsunami in a week. I've never been more convinced just how much control reviewers and YT personalities have over the hype/hate of game. The marketing window length might matter with some games, but not this one. Hardly anybody cared about Returnal until their favorite YT'er or reviewer told them to care. It made all the difference.
ID: gwphq19This is straight facts I had no idea what returnal was until all the YouTubers started hyping it up which usually drives me away from a game because most of the time the games they hype up are utter garbage
ID: gwpzn2awell was it different this time?
ID: gwpo36oI don’t watch the YouTubers or any of that but I only knew of Returnal from this sub which led me to join the Returnal sub. I am now in love with this game and decided to try Hades since then. Loved that as well and going to try Demon Souls next.
ID: gwprescAwesome! I really enjoyed DS. Good luck.
ID: gwpzg4uThat said, I followed this game very closely. Daily. The only thing that really mattered for this game's hype was the preview and review period. This game went from a drip to a tsunami in a week. I've never been more convinced just how much control reviewers and YT personalities have over the hype/hate of game. The marketing window length might matter with some games, but not this one. Hardly anybody cared about Returnal until their favorite YT'er or reviewer told them to care. It made all the difference.
Based on how other games (including Sony's) handles the marketing window, advertising the game closer to Launch is far more important than showing it to a Press Conference/Event or doing Livestreams months or years from its eventual release.
Don't believe me? look at Until Dawn or Tearaway: Unfolded. Both were announced at an major press conference, but minimum or practically zero advertising/marketing closer to launch.
Only differences is that one got lucky thanks to YouTubers, while the latter didn't...while releasing it closer to Until Dawn....MGSV...Super Mario Make-
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When hype is not met then people are disappointed, yes that's obvious. lol
The problem then is a game not living up to it's hype not how long before release it was announced. Now of course the longer you hype up a game the more you'll need to back it up and it can backfire, but it can work out just fine if the game can back it up.
ID: gwn4cqcDuke Nukem Forever.
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Miyamoto said Pikmin 4 was almost done sometime around 2015. Nintendo announced a new Metroid game 2-3 years as go. Ubisoft has continued to tease Beyond Good and Evil 2 for probably a decade at this point.
So yeah, I'll take the announcement for the nearly completed game closer to release.
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I dont think you understand the point of announcements, it has very little to do with gamers but more about the investors. Yes they want gamers to get excited, yes they want gamers to preorder based on the news, but those things are all about securing or keeping investors happy
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Who cares, as long as the game is good it will do well.
ID: gwn5cu6Not necessarily. Titanfall 2 is one of the best games of the last generation and it barely got any attention because it was released a week before/after that year's call of duty and battlefield 1
ID: gwn68n7EA is fucking stupid for sandwiching Titanfall 2 between Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (the most hated game of 2016) and Battlefield 1 (the most overhyped game of 2016). I’ll never get over that sheer level of idiocy.
ID: gwn7cicIt gets tons of attention these days though even having the May 1st event yesterday. The game struggles to do well because of the high skill floor.
ID: gwneelrIf that was true then Alien Isolation would be getting a sequel.
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I can appreciate both. Sometimes it's nice to know that something is in development, especially if it's a sequel to a favourite franchise or a long dormant franchise is getting a revival, as you're not left wondering if something is happening but you do end up waiting and waiting and waiting and building excitement; the worse case scenario though is you potentially spend all that time excited for it only for it to be a potential disappointment as it doesn't meet the hype you built.
On the other hand, when something is revealed and released a few months after then you don't need to spend a great amount of time waiting. It's coming. Soon. The downside is you may not have time to save for it and you don't get to build theories or, especially in the Internet age, impact development. For example, if something doesn't seem to be working right gameplay wise or a detrimental change in talent (think IO Interactive initially changing the voice of Agent 47 in Hitman: Absolution) then it's generally too late to fix it.
A nice mix is healthy. Elder Scrolls VI is coming and we can theory and discuss what we want from the game but it's a while away but Ratchet and Clank is just around the corner!
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You ain't wrong. Look at death stranding. The hype around that game killed it's momentum at launch. You shouldnt announce a game unless it's coming in less than 18 months.
ID: gwo5rqzDeath Stranding’s niche gameplay held it back more than anything. It still did quite well considering what kind of game it is. I think it’s a great game but I’d be hard pressed to recommend it to most people simply because of how (intentionally) tedious it is.
Also, the ridiculous number of menus you have to close out of every time you do anything exacerbates this problem.
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Yea, for sure. Imagine announcing a game only to never speak of it again except to say you screwed up and had to start over with different devs, for four years and counting. Brings shame to your company, or it should at least.
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I think the big reason why some companies announce their games so early on is to get a reading of the audience perception of the game. Either to ensure that their is a high sales opportunity here or to bring up moral for the development. I do agree though that if they know they got a good game in their hands they should hold off and announce it much later in development.
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Capcom over the last few years have had the best announcements IMO. They wait until they're very confident they can nail the release date, release trailer with the release date and they're usually within like 8-12 months after the trailer drop.
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It could be also because of unforeseen events. Anything announced in 2019 like Elden Ring may have been planned to release by March 2021. Coz of Covid, everything got halted and made everything harder and longer for the devs. Before covid, it could have been because of budget issues, internal crisis, poor time management, etc. Best you can do is like Rockstar. 1 or 2 months before release.
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One of there other games, Nex Machina, had about the same incubation time, yet "underperformed" in sales. I think the success of Returnal is less to do with the amount of time between the announcement and release and more about the amount of marketing resources Sony was willing to give the project. After all, most of those alternative examples (though I hadn't heard of Biomutant until this year) generated huge amounts of hype despite being announced ridiculously early.
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Yeah I really don’t care to see a trailer for a game I won’t play for 3 years. It’s way more exciting to know it’s coming soon.
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I agree because within the amount of time that Eldon ring will come out I guarantee there will be a lot of souls like games that will unfortunately flood the market. Or people will lose interest because the iron got cold.
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Agreed, I hate waiting
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When is Sony's next big show? Is been WAY too long since they had big announcements.
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I think there needs to be a good mix. I’ve over time came across comments saying they bought x to be able to play y by the time it released. However revealing something that may have <2 yrs before release, I feel helps with the game so much more to generate + maintain hype.
引用元:https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/n333yb/returnal_announcement_at_the_future_game_show/
This. This made more hype for the PS5 than anything in my opinion. Imagine if they announced most of their heavy hitters for 2022. This was not the case of course except for a very few., which is also healthy. But I think short and sweet with a release soon there after is a better strategy. Although I didn’t major in marketing, just my observation. I do hope Stray is not this route because the trailer did look pretty unique.