We all know what gets us pumped for the new games, the Hype. Now the thing is that hype is a fickled mistress. She can launch your game to the stratosphere, giving an already epic game feel even more epic. Or it can cause an inadequate game to not only crash and burn, but explode and take anybody nearby with it. Hype can also influence how people see games, where a game can be seen as truly awesome(Halo 3 is the best example) while others dont listen to the hype and see the game in a "different" way (Me, Yahtzee...). Lack of hype also overshadows sometimes great games that are simply put by everybody as just "good"(Odin Sphere). Well thats hype for ya.

I usually get pretty suspicious when a game is hyped to high heaven. Look at Fable, and Yahtzee's subsequent review thereof.

Hype is worst enemy of games concerning my personal view, hypes alway ALWAYS make me skeptic of games, and can even make me think of not even trying it.

(and yea, fable is a great example, what a fucking joke, i completed it in 4 hours, NO RPG can have that little play time, even if you dont do side quests)

probably gaming worst enemy its the bowser of mario......simply said hype can make a great games experience (looking at you halo 3) less enjoyable even if its still a great game

Hype is gaming's worst enemy. People fall for it, but once hype burns them by getting them to buy a crappy game they become suspicious of it, and the people who hype their games lose credibility. Then there are people like me who never listen to the hype anyway, and will actually avoid anything dripping in hype. There is an impression that if a game gets enough hype it will get good reviews, and sell millions regardless of quality, and it makes the quality of anything hyped to hell and back suspect.

Worst enemy. Period.

An enemy, without a doubt.

Hype, first of all, puts up unreasonable expectations. An above average game that is hyped for months and months, upon release, has an unfair standard to live up to. Many gamers will see through this, but conspicuously, many reviewers seem to fall for hype (maybe it's more complicated reasons, like the recent snafu at GameSpot). The result is that things tend to be skewed one way or the other, some people who let into the hype, or maybe genuinely think a game is the greatest thing ever, and then others who are firmly let down after getting excited by the hype machine.

Hype also by it's nature favors the game companies with the biggest advertising budgets and PR machines, not the best game designers. When you look at lists of the best games on platforms, often a substantial number of them are games that the average gamer hasn't seen one commercial for or full-page advertisement representing. Great games can disappear under the hype of more well known games, whether or not they deserve it. This is fundamentally unfair, but a reality of the free marketplace.

Hype hurts both the games it means to help and the games that do not have the benefit of hype machines behind them. But it's not anything that's going anywhere.

When I started gaming I listened to all the hype and would often go and buy a game just based on the attention it got in the magazines etc.

Nowadays I tend to take it all with a healthy pinch of salt. I will often try to learn about a game before even thinking about buying it.

Hype can be ruinous for a game as people nowadays tend to ignore it and immediately think the game is undeserving if it doesn't meet their expectations. Bioshock is a prime example, the gaming media hyped it to high heaven...and then people were let down finding any problem they could to criticize it over.

On one hand, hype moves a lot of units. On the other hand, it earns a lot of spiteful retribution from players who really were expecting this particular 11/10 game to be better than the last 11/10 game they played.

I think everyone has spoken and said that Hype is a terrible yet cunning harpy of a woman. I try not to listen to hype, but sometimes it can't be helped. I hope Mass Effect and Hell's Highway are awesome games, I really do.

I think it's a great friend for the game in question. Name me a game that was mediocre at least (ie no Daikatana) that sold worse because it was hyped. As for the industry, that nebulous ideal, not so friendly but no one ever got anywhere in their own lifetime selling ideals.
It's funny but in other industries, "hype" is "advertising" or "marketing". I have no clue what that says about us.

I heard that Daikatana was gonna make me John Romero's bitch...

I spoke to a colleague who works in marketing about this the other day. He was of the opinion that Hype is slightly different from other advertising and marketing schemes. The difference being that there can be too much hype, but not too many ads; all from a sales perspective.

Gamers are a fickle crowd and overhyping can hurt several products in spillover from disappointment with one product. It's a rather rare thing that a movie-goer would proclaim "This movie looked so much better in the trailer, I'll never watch another Universal movie again"; but "that Ubisoft game sucked, those trailers were pre-rendered gaddamit, I'll never buy one of their games again" is a more likely reaction.

As he put it, the game industry is very brand intensive; as evidenced by the six logos you have to click by every time you start a mainstream game.

Second hand information and I'm no expert, but I thought it sounded insightful.

raankh:
I spoke to a colleague who works in marketing about this the other day. He was of the opinion that Hype is slightly different from other advertising and marketing schemes. The difference being that there can be too much hype, but not too many ads; all from a sales perspective.

Gamers are a fickle crowd and overhyping can hurt several products in spillover from disappointment with one product. It's a rather rare thing that a movie-goer would proclaim "This movie looked so much better in the trailer, I'll never watch another Universal movie again"; but "that Ubisoft game sucked, those trailers were pre-rendered gaddamit, I'll never buy one of their games again" is a more likely reaction.

As he put it, the game industry is very brand intensive; as evidenced by the six logos you have to click by every time you start a mainstream game.

Second hand information and I'm no expert, but I thought it sounded insightful.

It does (sound insightful). I hadn't thought about it that way. But I still think that most of the hype of a game surrounds the game rather than the publisher, even though it's hard not to know that X is a Ubisoft game for example. We don't see "Microsoft: Finish the fight". So while the games we've bought don't let us forget who bankrolled the devs, the advertising campaign- the hype- does focus on the game.

I don't play hype. I play games.

I've seen that announcement for SF4. Everybody's excited. Well, just wait for the game before creaming your pants.

Well, it is all said already. Hype is bad for whoever started it and whoever gets buried under the ads that become soil.

Besides, i never liked advertisement really, mainly because they can annoy you to death with it.

And if there is a hype i hear of, maybe i should rent it if i can. thanks for the tip, guys. ;)

It's a double sided coin. Hype is excellent from a business standpoint, but terrible for setting standards of gameplay.

For all those people who say it's a game's worst enemy: The game is getting rave reviews by players. Obviously, SOMEONE has to enjoy it. Apparently that someone told all their friends to buy it, and their friends told their friends, until it's cult-like with their dedication to a game. The game gets massive sales because of these kinds of people, and the main reason is because of hype. The company has your 50 dollars, and you have a game that is either amazing or mediocre.

I do agree that hype can also put people off a certain game series (Halo being a prime example). Too much hype can make people skeptical, but people will continue to buy the game anyway.

I dunno about the worst enemy, but it is bad. Hype is usually built up in large part by the people making the game... and then everyone runs with it. It makes it very difficult for anyone to be heard and be objective and reasonable at the same time. I have said before, though not here, I think, that game reviewers often seem to be scoring the hype rather than the game, brushing things under the carpet and giving a 9/10 when a game is really only a 7 or 8. This gives game developers the impression that they can make a fortune on any game so long as they make it half-decent and then hype it to hell. That attitude is not conducive to making genuinely good games.

Hype just makes me hate games befor I even know waht they are about because I hate advertisments too.

Hype is a game's worst enemy because of how much ammo it gives to the people who don't like it. I wouldn't hate Halo 3 nearly as much if it hadn't had all those 10/10 scores laid at its feet by reviewers. Now, when people ask me why I don't like it, I can say "Because it brings absolutely nothing new to the table, yet the paid critics were tossing 10/10 scores at it without hesitation. It is average, no more no less. That's why I hate it."

So, in essence, hype destroyed Halo 3, because not only would I not have as much ammo to annihilate it with if it hadn't been put on a pedestal, but I probably wouldn't even dislike it so much to begin with.

Hype is the best friend of games and the worst enemy of gamers.

The main goal of a game, for the developer, is to make money. Hype means more games sold. Look at games like Halo, Heavenly Sword, and about any game made by EA, which get hyped to the moon, and in the case of the halos, sell millions of copies, but then they turn out to be less-than average games. If every buyer had demanded to play a demo and scrutinize the game first, these games wouldn't sell beans. While the publisher profits from an explosion of hype and first-day sales, the gamer gets the short end of the deal. Gamers get tricked into buying crappy games, and when developers can sell games this way, they have less incentive to make better games, so gamers get stuck with fewer and fewer genuinely good games.

Atmosck:
Hype is the best friend of games and the worst enemy of gamers.

The main goal of a game, for the developer, is to make money. Hype means more games sold. Look at games like Halo, Heavenly Sword, and about any game made by EA, which get hyped to the moon, and in the case of the halos, sell millions of copies, but then they turn out to be less-than average games. If every buyer had demanded to play a demo and scrutinize the game first, these games wouldn't sell beans. While the publisher profits from an explosion of hype and first-day sales, the gamer gets the short end of the deal. Gamers get tricked into buying crappy games, and when developers can sell games this way, they have less incentive to make better games, so gamers get stuck with fewer and fewer genuinely good games.

Which is why nintendo is alive, it's because of god.

In all seriousness though, nintendo is the one company that holds the gaming industry from doing another atari disaster.(i heard about that.)

The thing about hype is that it infects the fans, and in some cases whips them up into such a frenzy that they insist a game is amazing even when it's only fairly good at best. This is especially the case with established series that have dedicated fanboys (Halo, FF, anything by Nintendo) - they go blind and rabid with hype and the games get great reviews to appease them. Any criticism of the game is seen as pretentious or stupid, or simply not seeing the genius behind the game. And of course all the hype by the fans themselves makes others go out and buy it, and the game gets declared a best-seller, helping it establish its reputation even further.

Hype mostly goes bad with unestablished games. The recent Assassin's Creed for example, which was an okay game, but with a *lot* of flaws, and certainly didn't live up to the hype applied to it. There was no fanboyism to put down the intense disappointment and criticism after its release, and so it's been almost universally lambasted, scoring far lower in reviews than the developers were hoping.

Of course no hype for a game would mean it simply wouldn't sell well at all. I wouldn't call it an enemy of games. It can make new games seem like a disappointment, but it still gets them a lot of sales at the start. It's incredibly annoying, and almost comedic when the game turns out to be atrocious, but it's kinda necessary to get people aware of the games and make people want to buy them.

Test.

Hype's good. Hype's healthy.
If it's coming from the developers that is. As soon as the fanbase or the press start foaming over it, things go downhill.

I mean, I didn't care too much that Molyneux can't deliver everything he promises. I won't be annoyed too much with Wright if Spore turns out to be nothing like I heard him promise. But I won't forgive any magazine for hyping up a game for months on end and then award it a perfect score just because it doesn't want to look moronic for hyping things to the point that it's the Second Coming of Civilisation II.

I dislike fanbases immensely. Genuine appreciation for a game lies in the ability to see faults in something as well as to obsessively love it. It gives you a little slice of normality to cling onto, and the subsequent ability to function as a human being. Being blinded by something because it's the latest installment of Brand H produced by Company B is dangerous, and it's this group that the hype fuels into the most visible aspect of gaming to the "outside world"

KaynSlamdyke:
Hype's good. Hype's healthy.
If it's coming from the developers that is. As soon as the fanbase or the press start foaming over it, things go downhill.

I mean, I didn't care too much that Molyneux can't deliver everything he promises. I won't be annoyed too much with Wright if Spore turns out to be nothing like I heard him promise. But I won't forgive any magazine for hyping up a game for months on end and then award it a perfect score just because it doesn't want to look moronic for hyping things to the point that it's the Second Coming of Civilisation II.

I dislike fanbases immensely. Genuine appreciation for a game lies in the ability to see faults in something as well as to obsessively love it. It gives you a little slice of normality to cling onto, and the subsequent ability to function as a human being. Being blinded by something because it's the latest installment of Brand H produced by Company B is dangerous, and it's this group that the hype fuels into the most visible aspect of gaming to the "outside world"

I agree and disagree. To use the Fable example again, before the game came out Molyneux was raving about special,never-before-seen-in-games features that the team were developing. Certain game magazines that I was reading bought all this nonsense and hyped it even further ("We've played it! It's fantastic! It's Amazing! It's Orgasmic!"), and when it came out bestowed and festooned it with perfect scores. Further, some of the journalists for these magazines evn wrote a backlash aganst all the people writing about the game's flaws online ("To all the people who've crushed the spirit of one of the greatest developers around, we'd like to extend a very sarcastic Thank You!" etc etc).

When I bought the game I was duly disappointed. Part of this was because I had at the time trusted the judgement of the magzine journalists (to be fair,I was still young). But it was the hype coming from Molyneux that got the journos so tizzy with excitemnt in the first place. If developers could just reign in their flights of fantasy they so often seem to indulge in, there may be a few less jaded peeps such as myself.

I don't think hype is a games best friend or worst enemy. It's more like its worst friend or best enemy. You know, like that cheesy prick who always manages to avoid shelling out his share for the pizza or that asshole at work who doesn't backstab you when he could because he wishes to best you in a fair fight.

But then, I suck at analogies.

CyberAkuma:
I heard that Daikatana was gonna make me John Romero's bitch...

Had I paid anything over $10 I'd have felt like Romero's bitch. Anyone who bought that at $50 should have received a free leather-wrapped stick to bite down on.

That's why I rent most of my games. My collection builds
(about 13 PS2 games over 5'ish years, and about the same for PSP over a couple of years (my biggest mistake, I hardly play my PSP anymore) ) over the years. Many of the games that I play were rented.

When I was younger I was a bit of a "ooh that one looks cool" kid, especially with the old Game Boy Colour, but I'm so much more cautious with money these days.

Every cent spent, is a cent gone so I'd only buy a game if I either

A: Rented it and loved it (provided that I didn't finish it)

B: Played some of it at a friends house

C: Played those in a previous trusted series (Final Fantasy), although I'm more cautious about that now, with the Halo 3 thing (although H3's multiplayer is AWESOME).

Bottom line. Let the rental stores get sucked into the hype, while you just "test" it from them.

I don't like that hype has started deciding the sales of games rather then actually merits of the game.

It when developers start spending more on selling their game then making it entertaining gaming will fail.

I don't like that hype has started deciding the sales of games rather then actually merits of the game.

It when developers start spending more on selling their game then making it entertaining gaming will fail.

Worst enemy by far. Even if a game is deserving of it, hype aversion alone prevents people who would otherwise love the game from even looking at it. Not to mention all the amazing games that get overshadowed by the Hype Machine (Beyond Good and Evil, Odin Sphere, Psychonauts)