Ever since I started this website, I've noticed the way the hype train works. First, a game is teased with a trailer, then the press gets an "exclusive" hands-on with the game, where they almost invariably compliment the game based on its ridiculous budget. Then the huge marketing push starts – TV ads, internet ads, viral marketing, the whole nine yards. Finally, the game comes out, and having either secured the rights to 90+ scores on metacritic or simply having had even more marketing put out just before the game comes out, it goes on to sell a couple of million copies. And then it fades away, as gamers are already onto the next big fad game.
This happens week in and week out, and gamers don't seem to care – in fact, they seem to encourage it, as I've noticed many posters on videogaming websites complaining of "dry weeks," with nothing to buy.
In many ways, this is exactly how Hollywood has created the culture of the summer blockbuster, except in gaming it happens all year round, and the "prestige" films that usually garner all of the critical attention pretty much don't exist in gaming. The blockbuster games more often than not play it safe, preferring to rely on mechanics that make getting through the game as easy as possible so that players can be through and onto the next thrill as quickly as they can.
What this means is that timeless classics where you can clearly see the influence of the particular director or producer making a labor of love hardly exists anymore, and that's a damn shame. Where's the HD Shigesato Itoi or Daisuke Amaya – you know, developers who are both iconic and idiosyncratic?
I come from Saskatchewan, which is a province in Canada dominated primarily by agriculture. Any farmer can tell you that fields need time to rest in fallow to allow the soil to regain its minerals and nutritive value (well, unless they're huge corporate farmers who'll just GMO the shit out of their crops, in which case, they're basically the quote-unquote "AAA developers" of the agriculture world). This current generation's release cycle is strangling creativity in a horrifying way, and if people start to realize it, I could foresee a terrible videogame crash the likes of the early 80s, especially if prices go up. Goddamn, but this corporate culture of videogaming is really irking me.
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Shareholders are not big fans of risk, especially in the current economic climate. If you want creativity, it's best to look in the area of downloadable games or indie titles, where there's less overhead involved. I'm afraid this situation is not set to change for quite some time.
Try not to get too cynical about it. I prefer wholesome, old-fashioned pessimism.
I couldn't agree more and it is something I've written about time and time again.
Firstly, this hurts games because if I can't fucking find a new copy of a game a week after a game launches then I'm practically forced to buy it pre-owned. This hurts the high street and devs and publishers who often don't even sell their own games through their own website.
Secondly, preserving video game culture, which isn't happening a great deal at the moment is going to be a problem because games are so disposable. Classics are easily forgotten, become impossible to play because of technological redundancy or end up on collector's sites at an astonishing mark up.
Thirdly, video games increasingly seem to be manufactured for the 14 year old time-rich gamer who burns through games in days and weeks rather than the discerning gamer who dies a bit inside when playing Modern Warfare 2 single player and wonders how so many reviewers neglect to mention it is the worst gaming (that functions) there has ever been and the sad fact that your average gamer probably doesn't even notice or understand that they should be demanding more from the medium rather than have shit eating grins on their faces.
Lastly, who would ever want to bother to work in video games when you pour years of your life into something that might stay in the video game niche 'popular conscience' for a month or so before the next thing comes along. Subsequently the studio shuts down and everyone moves on to the next project. Or sets up their own studio, wash and repeat.
Not all of gaming is bad but this generation had so much potential, I'm not upset I'm just DISAPPOINTED.
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It's hard to say that it's any one thing anymore. I consider most of what videogames are today as pop culture lite, because pop culture actually has something idyllic around it, and occasionally art is made. Videogames have the cultural transmission necessary, they have a developed language, a specificity and type of mimetic, and an audience. But the audience isn't just as ready to accept Hayao Miyazaki as they are James Cameron. But even that's not exactly right, because Cameron had Titanic, even if it was (can't help myself) a sinking ship. Videogames have lots of Noby Noby Boy and World of Goo, even Immortall. But nobody really wants these games and even fewer want to talk about these games. It's not because they're consumed by hype engines primarily, it's just because the referent audience likes World of Warcraft and Bad Company 2. I presume it says something about culture that the "best" games are about murdering things (though if you ask Roger Travis, he'd probably just say that's what our culture has always been about). http://livingepic.blogspot.com/2010/05/red-dead-redemption-diary-day-2-in.html
Matthew you're gonna have to name me one medium that isn't dominated by the hype cycle. Show me an industry that isn't and I'll remind you that Touch & Go had to shutter its distribution and stop signing bands.
@Stephen Keating who are you talking about when you say 'nobody' wants to talk about Noby Noby Boy and World of Goo? I assume you don't mean the gamerati because these two were discussed in more than just passing, more than most games anyway. Nobody talks about WoW anyway and the Bad Company 2 thing is all off to me.
@John Cameron I agree with you in part but I can still easily stroll into a book store and pick up copies of books that came out 200 years ago. I'd be hard pressed to find a shop that sells a single GBA or Gamecube game.
@John – well, you're absolutely correct in saying that pretty well all media have their own hype machines. But I thought I would stick to videogames because, well… it is Vigigames.com, after all.
In any case, not talking about it simply because it happens in other media doesn't really make sense. That'd be like saying "the mayor is corrupt, but because corruption runs rampant, I shouldn't criticize the mayor."
Nah, what it is saying is that like any other medium video games are highly dependent on commerce. It's maybe more true of video games (though, like I said, the industries not making money would probably take exception to that idea) but suggesting that it's a hurdle that games need to get over or that it stifles directorial control isn't really accurate, cause Brutal Legend got published last year, you know?
The real thing is that the critical community for games is made up of more trade mag-type things, which need that hype cycle to sell copies, and which are needed by the game companies to sell those copies. That's never gonna disappear, but right now there's so few sources of non-commercial discourse over games that the prevalence of the hype cycle seems lopsided in games compared to other industries.
@Cunzy1 Yeah, you're right about that, and it's the one thing that's always driven me crazy in the fight against emulation on the part of the game companies – people would buy your intellectual property if you'd just sell it to them!