Console gaming is a marketing game, the biggest and best games will get first class treatment wither they are a 10/10 game or a 4/10 game. If a published can get enough hype behind a game it will become a talking point, from there it will become an internet phenomenon and then by the time of release you should have a high percentage of sales in the bag.
This is what most people believe a marketing strategy to be, it might actually be I am in no way shape or form an expert on such matter. I do not even claim to be an expert on computer games, I am given game to review and I play and give an opinion on them. Some games are more in demand than others I will admit, this can be due to a number of things.
Do not get me wrong the games below are not “bad” games, they are just games that have a lot of hype built up around them and yet are viewed as overhyped.
Assassins Creed – The hype surrounding this game series has floundered slightly in recent years, this is due to a yearly (sometimes even 2 games per year) release from the franchise. This for me is over-saturation; I do not play these games every year on release and right now have found myself finally starting Unity so I can play Syndicate. There is not enough time to let people get excited about the series again before the next example of Assassins Creed: (Insert name here) is ready for Q4 the next year.
The game series has a strong fan base who will disagree and that is perfectly OK, everyone is allowed to have an opinion and sensible discussions are built from well thought out views of individuals. I just feel the lack of time between titles is its biggest downfall as they refuse to hold off a year and at least let all of us who are lagging behind catch up with the franchise to date.
Call Of Duty – Arguably the most famous gaming series to date. The franchise has thrived from levels of hype unparalleled, with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 having some of the highest media coverage in the history of computer games down to a number of factors. The launch event had A list celebrities endorsing the game as well as a huge party in London leading up to the midnight launch of the game.
The game had an optional mission that was so controversial at the time that it could be cut out the game all together. On top of that the COD games have a Game Of Thrones habit of killing off players at any given moment, so the game does have a lot of things to proud of.
COD thrives on its online community which is known to be pretty toxic, by this you have players who are not known for being the friendliest of online opponents. Players who wear headsets are known to be verbally abusive and have been known to shout abuse about other players mothers. Online play though is fast paced and addictive to many people and is probably the series has survived so long in the modern age of gaming.
Though this series is a yearly iteration and although they have 3 studios who work on releasing their own COD title once every 3 years it is still hard to get excited. Some players will wait and buy the game every 3 years when their favourite studio has come back to making the game, still its yearly hype is enough to make some players slam their heads against walls.
Gears of War – Controversial one here, the game’s first outing was very well received. The game pushed the first person shooter to a third person cover based shooter. This made the game a more tactical choice over Call of Duty or Halo, here we had men the size of fridge freezers wielding assault rifles with chainsaws attached to them attacking enemies who looked like albino versions of the players. My mixed feelings on Gears of War left me feeling guilty about adding it to this list, on one hand I do enjoy the game but I will not let the fondness for the series keep it off this list.
The game created a lot of hype with the first ever trailers for the game features the haunting melody of Gary Jules – Mad World. The trailer showed a burly man escaping weird and dangerous plant life while running through an abandoned area.
This series does not have a yearly iteration but instead did not really advance the game mechanics with each game in the series, the game had you running around brown level after brown level. The games colour pallet did not really present much in the way of originality; it was hard to distinguish levels from one another in memory.
Online play is another favourite feature for players looking for competitive multiplayer. Though Gears of War did introduce the world to Horde mode which pitted you and friends co-op online against wave after wave of enemies for up to 50 waves. The introduction of horde mode in Gear 2 saw the feature being added to other popular game series of the time and just re-branded under another name (COD – Zombies, Halo – Fire fight mode)
With Gears of War 4 announced at E3 2015 it will be interesting to see what changes will be made to increase the hype for this upcoming title. The main Gears 1-3 main character was absent from the E3 demo, yet seem to be on the posters for all hype surrounding the game. This game seems to have a safe formula and refuses to come out of its comfort zone. The lack of progression in gameplay is what lets this game onto this list.
FIFA – This had to be on the list beyond all other titles you could imagine. I personally do not see the appeal in football; I have been ridiculed by many people for this. To be brutally honest I don’t care, football is oversaturated with money and advertising to make it about the sport anymore. When players get paid so much amount of money to kick a ball about and there are nurses and NHS staff grossly underpaid it really does get my back up.
I digress greatly here, the reason I have a problem with the game is down to a number of reasons, though for this article I will narrow it down to one very particular point. The yearly iteration could be done with an optional patch or DLC; instead they stupidly con millions of people out of their hard earned money for essentially the same game but with tweaks to the passing system. People will queue for midnight launches for the same game every year and they are happy about it, fair enough the graphics are touched up a little bit. At least with Assassins Creed you have some form of story in there to keep you invested.
Maybe I miss the point in FIFA but I feel the hype and advertising every year is unnecessary, at E3 2015 the EA press conference could have done without wheeling Pele onto the stage to talk about football. The people who are loyal to FIFA will not simply forget about it if you stop putting Lionel Messi or whoever on the side of buses and billboards for a year.
Watch Dogs – Shown off at the Ubisoft E3 2012 press conference, this game looked to be the next generations answer to GTA. The game looked amazing and game mechanics that seemed to good to be true.
Unfortunately it was, the hype Ubisoft built up around Watch Dogs was what essentially killed the game before it could even get up off the ground. The game was being critically praised from a E3 trailer straight away and the end result was something very different.
The game was very lacklustre and generic in many ways, the main character was so bland it made the colour beige look exciting. The game was not sure what it wanted to be and with anticipations running very high for the game it was going to be hard for Ubisoft to deliver anything close to what people were expecting.
This may have been controversial for people; other people might think I have went far too easy on some games. If you have opinions then please comment below and let us know your thoughts and feeling on the matter.
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