Believe the Hype

After class today and the discussion on how Sony promoted the Play Station and created hype and buzz back in 1994 it got me thinking a lot about the hype in the gaming world as a whole. Xbox also created hype before it release but in a completely different way. They paid different bar tenders to talk to customers in bars about ‘this new gaming console called the Xbox and how amazing it was going to be, people were being subjected to advertising without even realising it and on a completely new level.

Now in the case of the Xbox, it obviously lived up to the hype but speaking from personal experience I can say this is often not the case. Several years back I pre-ordered a game called “Frontlines: Fuel of War” which had so much hype built around it and its capabilities of being an MMO. It was advertised everywhere and talked about a lot. However when the release date came around the game was a massive disappointment. The game was average and there were no players to sustain the online side. It did vary slightly from standard FPS’ slightly and this obviously did not pan out or play to the games advantage, clearly going in the wrong direction. 

It made me realise that hype and promotion are almost as important as the game itself, provided you have the goods to back it up. Gamers gossip and speculate a lot and it definitely pays to use that to your advantage. Games like Halo and Call of Duty which help create buzz and are extremely successful (it also helps to actually have a decent game). It is amazing the size of the gaming community and the money involved in video games. It is definitely an area that is overlooked by most people as it is such a large community.