Managing Expectations

"Gamers are a shrewd bunch. Each time developers release a new piece of information regarding their work in progress, the gaming community snaps up every shred and meticulously pores over it. With each screenshot and list of potential features, their expectations for the game gradually coalesce into a snowball of hype. And while it can cause games to fly off the shelves on release day, hype can also be fatal."

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Cant fault that analysis. However like you say its a fine line between releasing enough info to keep people interesting & releasing too much/too little. Release too much & people get dissapointed when the finished product doesnt live upto the expectation. Release too little & unless its exceptional it just gets ignored, brushed aside by the stuff that has more shiney things on show to distract us.

"The gamer experience begins the second they hear about the game, not when they first load it up."

that should be on a poster in every game studio. I see your point of view, bad reviews travel quickly. Likewise how it old everyone i knew that if they bought kane and lynch they were stupid. Guess i screwed the developers worse than Gamespot did, hah.

I liked Fable...but that's because I first heard about it, and played it, at a friends house 2 months after the release.

Maybe I shouldn't be following Fable 2 so closely...

I simply assume every game will be shit until it proves otherwise. Saves me a lot of hassle and disappointment. Only Half-Life 2 + Episodes and GTA IV have been able to induce more than a whiff of excitement in me these last few years.

Strikes me that Portal did this perfectly. There was some word about it and people were sort of intrigued but nobody really saw it as more than a nice extra for the Orange Box. Two weeks after its released people are suddenly talking about it as one of their favourite games ever. True, it wasn't the selling point for the Orange Box, but as far as expectations go it seems to have been managed very well. It delighted and surprised almost everyone.

Hah, though not intentionally a funny article I have to say I found it so, simply because both myself and my friends have fallen into that category at least one in our lives.

A very good summing up of what we the gamers should know as well as developers.

blackcherry:
Hah, though not intentionally a funny article I have to say I found it so, simply because both myself and my friends have fallen into that category at least one in our lives.

A very good summing up of what we the gamers should know as well as developers.

That pretty accurately reflects my feelings as well. Great article!

InsoFox:
...True, it wasn't the selling point for the Orange Box..

Huh, speak for yourself. HL was just a nice little surprise for me ( a very nice surprise).

Anyways, on the article: great read. I agree that hype can ruin a game, especially with all the Halo bashing (no, I'm not saying it's a good/bad game, just that it got a lot of hype) and all.

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it.

This is a topic that has interested me for quite a while and it was good to finally get pen to paper as it were.