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Hype in Video Games
272 Plays3 years ago
In this episode, Fraser (Satsunami) and Adam discuss the role of hype within gaming. From games that lived up to the hype to ones that still live in infamy, they discuss three particular games that represent the good and bad sides of hype.
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Transcript
Introduction to Chatsunami and hosts
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. I'm Satsunami, and today I am joined by the amazing, the fantastic, the absolutely brilliant, you won't believe who I've got in this show today, the... Oh, sorry, one second. Just getting a phone call. Sorry, one sec. Mm-hmm.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yep, yeah, I'll tell him. Sorry Adam, that was the producer for Chatsanami saying we don't have enough of a budget to actually hype you up today. So yeah, I'm just gonna have to quickly say, yep, here's Adam, there we go. Oh man, I was getting so pumped and also nervous, I was like, no don't pick me up. Oh god, no, I can't handle the pressure. Keanu, you can go home now.
00:01:03
Speaker
it's okay it's okay he's gone home that's fine no one will be yelling breathtaking around these parts what makes a criminal oh god let's not get into that
00:01:19
Speaker
So yeah, as you can tell by that very, very subtle introduction.
Is video game hype intensifying?
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, today we are talking about hype in particular in relation to video games in general. Yeah, before we dive into our key examples, Adam, what do we mean when we're talking about hype? What would you say?
00:01:39
Speaker
Well, I'll go straight to the dictionary definition of hype, which is extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion. So that idea of trying to create a storm of interest and excitement for your new video game is the best description.
00:01:56
Speaker
And I mean, even when we were younger, would you say when we were younger, hype was not worse as in it was bad, but there was a lot more hype when we were younger in playing video games than it is nowadays? Or do you think it's just gotten worse as
Adam's view on evolving video game hype
00:02:12
Speaker
the years have gone on? I think it's gotten worse, to be honest. I think, like... Really?
00:02:15
Speaker
You know, it might be the way of it. It might be that I'm more kind of clued in now and like rather when I was younger, I wasn't really always following, you know, like video game things. So there might have been a lot of like obviously there were hype games like, you know, I can remember like big releases back when I was a kid and a teenager and everything.
00:02:32
Speaker
Perhaps it's just now that I'm more like, you know, I look more news kind of video game news items, I see more of this hype, but I don't know, to me it feels like the hype train is now like, it's now just like, nobody's at the helm of it, you know, it's just, the engine's on full, nobody's steering it, you know, it's gonna fly or it's gonna plummet, so.
00:02:51
Speaker
I don't know, I just get the feeling now it's out of control. Yeah, I think that's one of the curses of like growing up and going into adulthood, isn't it? Where do you kind of think, oh no, you notice like the kind of subtle things where, you know, you buy a packet of like shreddies or cornflakes or whatever and you see like this random fortnite, not that you do really, but you know what I mean, you see like a random character from a video game on it and it's like, oh no, what the...
00:03:18
Speaker
What is going on?
Creating hype: Information saturation and advertising
00:03:20
Speaker
And then, yeah, it's just that whole idea of, I suppose just trying to bombard the public, isn't it? It's trying to bombard them with as much information as possible about their game. I mean, not all companies do it. Like I have seen some game companies just kind of slowly be like, oh, here's a video game. And you're like, I had no idea this was a thing. That's a thing.
00:03:43
Speaker
But you always get suspicious of that, because there have been some really bad games that companies have just let out. Just the day before, like, oh, here we go. Go, go, go. And then it's stuck in cover, because it's absolutely crap. But I don't know. For me, I still see bosses around where I live that have cyberpunk advertising on them. And I can't recall.
00:04:05
Speaker
As a kid seeing like video game advertising that i'm sure there were some but i can't ever recall that kind of you know visible advertising that wasn't in like a gaming magazine.
00:04:16
Speaker
or maybe you'd see an occasional advert on TV. Well, I feel like now, as I said, it goes like a bus stop and I'd see a big poster for the next Call of Duty, Cyberpunk, whatever. Yeah. I suppose you have to think of it in the sense that the gaming landscape has changed since we were younger. That's true. I always remember going back to, I can't remember what it was from. I think it was from a newspaper. And it's one of these satire comics
00:04:44
Speaker
where it's this couple who are watching their son play video games. They're thinking about how this is going to be good for this future. Inside the Thought Bubble, there's a picture of a newspaper and it's got circled, wanted Nintendo player. Pro only, that kind of thing. Back then, you wouldn't really have thought that gaming would be where it is now.
Gaming: From hobby to career
00:05:10
Speaker
No, no. If you know what I mean, like when we were growing up it was just like, I mean it still is a pastime in all of this but nowadays like people make genuine careers and things out of it. Yeah. So it's like it's totally changed but I feel as if with that also comes this kind of over-saturation. I mean would you agree with that? There's like just so many games that are out now with all different genres and things like that. You know they're kind of competing to get the attention or that kind of spotlight.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I mean, it's such a bigger industry now as well than what it was in the 90s and early 2000s when we were growing up. So yeah, and as you say, there's so many more. I mean, there's probably more video game companies now. I mean, I don't know that for a fact. I'm just going to guess there are. Certainly, they're much bigger. Like, you know, the ones that the Giants are far, far bigger than they ever like were.
00:06:01
Speaker
when we were growing up and stuff. And there's so much money tied into it. So many investors and backers and everything that, yeah, they have more resources. That's why I think hype has increased now, because there's just more resources. People have more money to throw at these things. And there's more, like I said, there's obviously,
Nostalgia and trusted characters in gaming hype
00:06:19
Speaker
everybody's always wanted their games to sell. But now, especially with corporate backers and everything,
00:06:23
Speaker
It is really the bottom line, everybody wants their product to sell, so that's why they saturate it. Also, kind of going back to one of the topics we spoke a couple of weeks ago about, it's like banking on a lot of good faith with certain properties, like in terms of nostalgia and looking at characters that already have a strong presence, like for example one of the ones you might see on the screen of course is Mega Man, well it's not Mega Man on the screen but
00:06:50
Speaker
the good will from Mega Man which resulted in that game that we're gonna talk about later. And it's the same with Mario, Sonic, Call of Duty as well, Hero. Just think of any popular mascot or gaming franchise, FIFA maybe, things like that, and that is kind of what they bank on. I think I said this a couple of weeks ago in regards to Call of Duty, where it was like,
00:07:19
Speaker
I always remember this where they were like, oh, we've got boots on the ground now, and that was it. Your favourite phrase. Yeah, I love that phrase. So yeah, that was referring to when Call of Duty went through like a space-shitter phase. You know, it's like, mom, it's not a phase, it's who I am.
00:07:34
Speaker
you know went from World War II to modern shooter to futuristic shooter and then what the hell happened it just it went straight to space when like Titanfall when all of those shooters were coming out and then it fell down to earth again to and I quote boots on the ground and
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah that was supposed to be the calling card of oh I'm gonna get you hyped and it's like wow it's like a description for walking wow that has got me hyped for this game. Can you imagine that for any other game? I mean yeah it's difficult to imagine but like I'm sure there must be
00:08:16
Speaker
There must be the same buzz words and catch phrases that are used for different types of games. I don't know what the translation of Boots on Ground would be for those other ones, but I have to imagine there must be those phrases that if you're a fan of those games, you're like, oh my god, if I hear this one more time.
00:08:34
Speaker
I mean, I suppose it's like, and I know I talk about Sonic a lot, but it's like, if you said, oh, we're going back to pixel art, and it's like, wait, what? You know, almost feels as if they're like regressing rather than innovating. But I don't know, it's just as a weird kind of mindset to have. But the more, as we said, when the more time marches on, as I was talking to you about like earlier before we came on stream. Yeah, the idea of hype.
00:09:03
Speaker
especially in regards to video games is just, and again, I know, ironic, it's massive.
00:09:08
Speaker
if you look at like when we were growing up of course it was kind of viewed and that social aspect it was viewed as more of a hobby or if you want to you know if you want to play in the stereotypes like a menace to society and all of this you know some people still think that some people do but it's more when there was that kind of looking down on games and nowadays like when I say nowadays I'm talking about like
00:09:34
Speaker
even mid-2000s slash 2010s where you have celebrities. Do you remember the adverts for Black Ops 2 when it came out? Oh, they had everybody in, didn't they? Jonah Hill and Robert Downey Jr. Everybody was in that.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah and it was just all these celebrities which you think like a decade or two earlier I mean I don't know if they had many celebrities but I don't remember I mean they probably they possibly could but I mean yeah having all those celebrities at once and just being like look at our game and hyphen up how great it was you know and nowadays that's kind of commonplace that see cyberpunk where yeah you honestly couldn't turn
00:10:16
Speaker
on the internet without the meme slapping you across the face, saying, you're breathtaking. But at least Keanu Reeves was in that game, at the very least. Like, I don't think Jonah Hill was, you know, in Black, unless, I don't know, unless he did a voice or something.
00:10:32
Speaker
I don't ever recall him being a part of that. But that was really a big phase, because the one after that, Black Ops 2, was Ghosts. And Ghosts basically tied itself to Eminem, at least an album, at the same time. And one of the songs, I've forgotten which one it is, but one of the marquee tracks of that album was tied to Ghosts. It was used as a theme tune. And in Eminem's music video, there's Ghosts plays in the background at points, I'm sure.
00:10:59
Speaker
It was so tied into it and everything and it really was a phase. I'm sure Snoop Dogg was one of them as well. I can't remember if it was like a modern warfare or something. He was tied into that. It was that phase that really pushed the celebrity involvement.
00:11:14
Speaker
Because I mean, I think it was Modern Warfare 2 that they had an Eminem song as well. Oh they did as well, good point. I'm actually surprised that they had them back twice. No shade against Eminem, I'm just saying. It's just strange that they're like, that went well, let's bring them back.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, Snoop Dogg especially. I can't remember. I'm sure he's a voice in one of them. I can't remember. Is it one of those three, is it? It might be, yeah. I'm sure it's like... I'm sure it was like DLC or something.
Indie games: Word of mouth marketing
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah. But I mean, that's the thing though. It is weird as well because hype isn't just... So we're talking about like the kind of, you know, like the overt type of hype, you know, with companies putting in tons for advertisement, for celebrities and things like that.
00:12:01
Speaker
But I mean, nowadays with the internet, and I feel as if I'm so saying that, nowadays with this newfangled thing called the interwebs, you know, it's amazing how word of mouth can kind of emphasise that or reinforce it. Look at a lot of the indie games nowadays, like a lot of indie games probably, well, I'm certain that they don't have as high a budget to kind of play with for advertising.
00:12:25
Speaker
so they have to rely on word of mouth. And especially for things like Kickstarters, because how many Kickstarters have we seen come and go over the years in gaming and saying, oh, we are the spiritual successor to that game you love? That's the other catch for a spiritual successor with the one, wasn't it? Like, oh my God, everything was a spiritual successor to something. Oh, God. I mean, there's so many to choose from. There's, well, mighty number nine, which we are going to talk about later, trust me.
00:12:54
Speaker
I didn't search Google for a PNG or that character for nothing.
Kickstarter's role in game hype
00:12:58
Speaker
Well we're not going to be talking about this one but there was also Yooka-Laylee which was a signature successor quote-unquote to Banjo-Kazoo and you know how much I love Banjo-Kazoo, like I have a real soft spot for that game and then they brought it out and it was just like you just read the stuff about it and it was like
00:13:18
Speaker
yeah like 9 times out of 10 usually it's like a disappointment that's a gamble you have to take though isn't it yeah it's like are you gonna buy into the hype or not and some of them have succeeded as well like that bloodstained did pretty well didn't it which was like the quote unquote spiritual successor to castle to old school castlevania that did quite well from what i understand it was actually a decent game at the end thank god there's one of them because honestly it feels as if like maybe it's just the stereotype of these kind of games where it's like
00:13:47
Speaker
oh no you hear kickstarter you hear spiritual successor it's like a starter pack for disappointment almost and you're like oh please just please work and just don't please don't steal the money and escape to like south america or something it's like
00:14:04
Speaker
do you not find like a more maybe it's just maybe maybe it's just me and i'm just a screwed up person but it's not like a morbid fascination with just watching especially if it's like a game that you're not that interested in it's just more a fascination with just watching being like is it gonna fail you know it's that way like if you watch like a car rolling down a hill and it's like
00:14:20
Speaker
There's like an electrical store at the bottom where you're like, is it going to crash through? It's like in a morbid fascination watching it, like, always wanting it to fail. Yeah, no, I'm the same. Like, I mean, I don't wish any ill will against, you know, a game, but when you actually see it, like,
00:14:36
Speaker
This is kind of the basics of media though, isn't it? It's like a bad, like a tragedy sells more than a game that succeeds, really. Or not a game, but just if something succeeds and you're kind of like, oh well, all's well that ends well. But you know, if it's like a game that's like broken at launch, you're like, right, where's the popcorn? Let's get that internet historian video up.
00:14:57
Speaker
Which, yeah, he does something. He honestly does some amazing work. Because he did a lot of good, like, retrospects for a lot of these games. Like, one of the ones, it's kind of funny you brought that up, like, about kind of having that fascination. Because, and I'm going to be honest here, I am not a huge fan of Fallout. I don't know why, though, because I tried it, but I don't know. I just couldn't get into it. And that's kind of triggered another phrase in my head where it's like,
00:15:25
Speaker
You know when people say, it's X game with Y. So for example, when people were describing Fallout, they were saying, it's Skyrim with guns. And it's like, no, it's Fallout. With Fallout stuff, you're your own thing. Don't use your brother as a crutch. It's like, yeah.
00:15:45
Speaker
It's this weird mentality or this kind of, I don't know, this kind of like fear almost of like standing on your own but it's like in kind of a desperate attempt to build this hype. They're gonna say, oh it's like that thing you love. Like you know the old Spice Adverse? Yeah. It's like, what's this? I have two tickets to that thing you love. You know it's like that. It's like, what's this? It's a game. Exactly the same as the game you love. And it's like, no it isn't. Don't lie to me.
00:16:13
Speaker
equivalent of Old Spice Man in video games, don't lie to me. And yeah, when it came to Fallout 76, I bought Fallout 4. I think I got past the first couple of levels, well not levels, but you know what I mean, first couple of missions. And then
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah, like I got the power armor and everything so relatively early on and then after that I just got bored and I was like this isn't for me so like I dropped it and then they announced that Fallout 76 was coming out and I was like I mean I wasn't like thinking of getting it but then I just heard the horror stories and my god there is
00:16:56
Speaker
that that game is like a beautiful mess at launch that was just absolutely ridiculous
Fallout 76 vs. The Witcher: Hype outcomes
00:17:01
Speaker
like between the bugs and you know the leaking personal information of people borderline scamming people the what yeah I thought now that is that is bad it's not good at all but
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, just all of this. If you want to get a full comprehensive understanding of it, watch Internet Historian's video on it. It is so good, isn't it? It's so entertaining and it sums up every single problem with the game. And it's just that idea that you're watching this video
00:17:35
Speaker
As you said with a game that personally I have no interest in but you're watching the game or the video thinking huh that is actually interesting why you know it failed like if someone said oh yeah it came out to resounding success everyone was happy about the rum bottle that was actually a plastic case
00:17:54
Speaker
or you know or the canvas bag that was actually like yeah nylon bag yeah actually nylon oh it's so funny just even if you read about it you're just like this can't be real this is like from a big you know like company like Bethesda this isn't like you know small potatoes with um you know it's not an indie company let's say yeah just as few but i mean yeah there's just so many examples isn't there oh there's a lot there's a lot like companies building heights
00:18:23
Speaker
and whether or not it pays off. So, like, for example, you've got, like, The Witcher 3. That game was hyped to hell. In fact, that is quite interesting because two of the examples that we talked about earlier with Fallout 76, where that was a game that was hyped to hell and it just bombed completely. But you could say the opposite happened to Skyrim, which is one we're going to talk about later.
00:18:48
Speaker
But, you know, that was hype to hell and that succeeded because of the hype. And I mean, it's the same with like The Witcher, the one before it, you know, it's the game before Cyberpunk and The Witcher was like critically acclaimed, it was hyped. I actually had no idea about The Witcher really until people started talking about it through this game. Me too.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think as well I think actually the hype for the Witcher like actually grew after the game came out Like that's when I started to hear about it was actually after the game release and people were going Mental about it and it was like being proclaimed like the best game of all time, you know and everything So I think it was one where the hype was big to start with but then it just kept going You know and like it's still it still goes now
00:19:31
Speaker
It's part of the reason I'm put off playing it because people talk about it too much. It's true. No, it's true. Because, I mean, there is. There's loads of, um, critical acclaim for it. It's still considered one of the best games of, like, all time. I mean, if you even look at, like, Skyrim, it's like both of those games are considered classic so much so that even today they're still getting ported onto your, you know, whether you have, like, a smart fridge or a smart toaster, you know, they're still getting ported onto them and you're like, what the actual hell?
00:20:02
Speaker
What the hell?
Cyberpunk 2077's hype and fallout
00:20:04
Speaker
It's just as weird. But that shows how the hype kind of paid off. Whereas Cyberpunk especially. That was hype to hell. And that was another game, and I'm not trying to send the kicking trade in, but I genuinely had no interest in it. And not in a bad way. I don't want to be like, oh I had no interest in that childish game, like genuinely.
00:20:28
Speaker
Like I had no idea what it was about and then when I heard about it I was like yes.
00:20:33
Speaker
It looks okay, but yeah, when it actually came out, it was that grab your popcorn moment, wasn't it? Yeah, I was slightly different. I was very, very excited. It's weird because I played The Witcher 2. I played a little bit of The Witcher 3, but I didn't really grab. I was really, really excited for Cyberpunk when it was announced and stuff, and I was really into it, and I couldn't wait. Then it felt like such a long time that by the time it started to come out, I was like, oh yeah, Cyberpunk's coming out. And I was like, oh, that'll be good and exciting.
00:21:01
Speaker
and then I don't know it just kind of naturally I just seem to like be like to lose interest you know I was like oh cyberpunk's out and then and then like just as you say like the disaster that was this release happened and I was like yeah and then I was like I read more and more about it I was like you know what I'm never gonna get this game
00:21:19
Speaker
I just, I'd lost any interest, like, you know, but I was initially, like, properly. I'm not hype training, very, very excited for it. I'm not gonna, like, backtrack and be, like, as soon as it came out, it was like, ooh, I'm gonna get it, but I was a bit curious. Because, I mean, with, like, Keanu Reeves and everything, all the memes, all this and that coming out about it, it was like, okay, maybe there is something here. But then I saw all the glitches and things and I thought, yeah, no.
00:21:44
Speaker
and the whole, like, optimisation thing. And yeah, that is an example where just hype killed that game completely. They promised the world and they were hyped from the previous entry with the Witcher and they thought, you know, oh, it's not gonna... it's not gonna cut off their reputation, I suppose. That's what they thought. And yeah, spoilers that kinda did.
00:22:08
Speaker
not personally against like you know the developers themselves but you know whatever kind of corporate shenanigans went on in the background either way it's like killed the game hasn't it yeah i mean it may make a comeback i mean you don't want to say like you know you don't want to never i think it's been it's too soon and they are they are still doing work so you know it could it could make a you know one of the games we're going to talk about has made a very drastic like you know comeback um so it's it's possible
00:22:35
Speaker
It's possible for it to come back. We'll just have to see when things have to be, but at the minute it still qualifies as a disaster.
00:22:45
Speaker
I mean, I'm not being funny, but when a game as popular as that needs like a roadmap for a full year before it reaches any DLC, kind of alarm bells there. But yeah, that's a chance to nail me for another day when we actually buy the game and be like, oh, this is actually really good. So yeah, that brings us on to really the main part of this episode.
Games that met, missed, or rebounded from hype
00:23:11
Speaker
So basically we have chosen
00:23:13
Speaker
three games. Yeah, just basically what we think of with a game that has lived up to the hype, a game that has failed to live up to the hype but has kind of worked its way and came back again. And the third example is one that's completely, yeah, it was hyped up and it was just dead on arrival.
00:23:35
Speaker
when it came out so let's start on a positive note because goodness knows we're gonna need it after we talk about the other two. So yeah the first one we've got is Skyrim which I have to admit I was not like big into you know like Oblivion and Morrowind just the Elder Scrolls series in general like I'd seen other people play it and talk about it but
00:23:57
Speaker
I hadn't really played it until people started hyping up Skyrim, seeing how amazing it was and then I kind of chomped down on the bait and thought, okay fine, I'll try it out and absolutely loved it. But what about you though? Did you buy into the hype at the time?
00:24:14
Speaker
I definitely did because I got Skyrim probably not on release but not long after release certainly but it's funny because I'd played Oblivion I played a bit of Oblivion and I'd enjoyed the I only played like the first kind of bit of it and I enjoyed that but I reached like a really combat heavy segment and it was just I just found it impossible I just gave up with the game there so I didn't really delve into Oblivion much I played a bit of Fallout 3 but I'm like yeah I don't
00:24:39
Speaker
really have that much fondness for the Fallout series. So like, it's weird that I don't really know. From that, like, I have no real attachment to Bethesda games. So I don't know quite why. I don't know. I think I just like the setting. I think I was intrigued. I do. There's a fantasy setting that can sometimes like, you know, some fantasy fantasy settings, I get quite excited. I'm like, Oh, that sounds really cool.
00:25:02
Speaker
I think I just liked what I saw about the game and I think it had some really good marketing and some really good trailers. They kind of brought up excitement and the world looked really cool. So I was actually very excited for it and I got it pretty not long after release. I'm actually trying to remember when I got it because as I said I think I might have got it a couple of months after it was released. In fact no, it might have been later but it was like
00:25:25
Speaker
When I got it, like, I think I got it for relatively cheap, so I wasn't, you know, like, I wasn't scoring if it was gonna be bad or anything, but when I got it, I was like, okay, this is interesting. You know, it wasn't really my type of game, because I think at that time I was kind of going through a, I think, like, the teal end of my FPS phase, because, yeah, I was getting into, like, Call of Duty, um, Halo, especially, with, um, like, Reach and things. Yeah, it was interesting, but, like, it was something different.
00:25:54
Speaker
You know, it was something fresh and the idea that you could create your own character and play it as you wanted to play it and don't get me wrong, the game is filled with like bugs, glitches and all of that but it wasn't, for the most part anyway, it wasn't that bad or it didn't like break the game as much. For the most part, yeah. For the most part, yeah. Like there were a couple but not enough to kind of break the experience for you.
00:26:22
Speaker
I think as well, like, I think that was a period where we kind of, this was obviously pre Fallout 76, so we kind of accepted that Bethesda games were buggy, you know, it was just, however you were like, you were like, you took it, you just took it, it was like the salt you took with like, you know, your sugar.
00:26:38
Speaker
and stuff, you know, you just accepted them. The games had a great scope and scale to them, and there was some great, like, you know, you could really get invested in it, but you had to deal with the bugs. You're like, okay, fine. I mean, I'll keep my vegetables to have the taste.
00:26:53
Speaker
I was going to say it's kind of ironic though, isn't it, that they used to say that modders would fix all the issues in Bethesda games. For some reason Bethesda took that as like a badge of honor and leaned more into modders and things. To the extent that when Fallout 4 and M76 came out they were actually getting people to pay for more mods and you're just like,
00:27:16
Speaker
This isn't good. You're supposed to be a professional company. You shouldn't be depending on mods to be a good game. Don't get me wrong, mods do help increase a game's life.
00:27:29
Speaker
I mean, God knows how many times I've played through Skyrim with mods, and Notable Shoutout, of course, being the fancy mudcrab mod. Absolutely love that. It's literally, you get a mudcrab and they just slap like a top hat in a Monica London, and I honestly couldn't play through it without having that mod on. Yeah, because it's like, they just, you know, they just did not look the same.
00:27:53
Speaker
after that, like as soon as you saw them, it's like, where? It's like, where's your top hat, sir? And they're just, you know, they're just garboing because, you know, they're mudcrabs. They're not, they're not really the, I don't want to say bellow the bow, but you know what I mean? They're not really sociable creatures in that game. Yeah. Well, the modern community, I think, explains a lot of like Skyrim's longevity is that it has such an active community in it. As you say, it gave this game, it gave the game, like, the game was already quite replayable, but it gave it this, like,
00:28:21
Speaker
the added level of replayability, so I think that's what really helped. I think I also sustained the hype past release and everything, and people got excited about these new mods and said maybe we want to come back and play it. Yeah, because it does have a surplus of hype, doesn't it? Yeah, definitely. I mean, even today, as I was saying in the beginning, even today, it's been released for every single system, hasn't it? Yeah, pretty much, basically. I'll do this on
00:28:50
Speaker
They've got PC, Xbox, PlayStation, the Switch now, and my terrible language journey Switch. I'll explain one day with that game, but it's an example of a game that definitely lived up to the hype and it kind of utilised it really well.
00:29:12
Speaker
to kind of, not promote itself, but carve itself into gaming. How do they put it? Not like history. Well, history. Yeah, that was probably the right one, didn't it? Yeah. Popularity, but yeah. Cringes also sound. It's like, you know, you get those really bad pictures online of like, I'm a gamer. I have many lives. And for some reason
00:29:35
Speaker
there's always the Dovah kind, the main character in Skyrim, just in the corner of that next to the dude from Battlefield. I don't know, Kritos from God of War and things like that. And it just kind of shows you, because that game's so popular, that they consider that to be one of the examples of them showing themselves off as being a gamer.
00:30:00
Speaker
being part of this kind of community. So it's definitely one that has succeeded with the hype. I think as well it actually makes a really interesting comparison to the next two games we're going to talk about, just in terms of its pre-release hype. I'll just briefly say,
00:30:18
Speaker
Because if you look at the ad campaign for Skyrim, what it was quite clever was it was quite light on details. But actually what it really did was it really pushed like the kind of gravity and the scale of the game and made it this big sort of event. And, you know, like it kind of telling people like this is a big deal.
00:30:35
Speaker
people kind of bought into that. And so everybody was really excited about like, oh, I can't wait to explore Skyrim in this world, you know, and do all this stuff rather than being like, oh, I really can't, you know, wait for this specific feature, you know, which I think our other two games got a little bit caught up in that, which, you know, kind of had bad effects for them. And as well, I think the fact that it had a big company behind it who have experience of promoting Bethesda, you know, they're old hands now as well. Well, maybe you would think so from 76, but they were sort of, you know,
00:31:03
Speaker
They were kind of old hands at doing this and knew kind of what to do. And so they benefited from that. And also they had a lot of resources behind it, you know, and everything they could make a very effective marketing campaign. Whereas our other examples were from, you know, smaller teams and smaller studios with less experience. And I think that really showed.
00:31:20
Speaker
it's just kind of going back to what you were saying about like they didn't emphasize the you know they didn't emphasize like any mechanics which I was saying it was kind of more to do with the like more to do with the story and the experience because I remember one prominent um trailer where it was the the main character the Dovahkiin the dragon slayer if you will who ended up it was like a live action trailer wasn't it? Was it a live action?
00:31:48
Speaker
I'm sure it was a live action. There was two of them. There was the one where it was on the cliff, remember. That was a pre-rendered one, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, and he does the fish rodine, he goes, and you know, it goes through all of Tamriel, or not Tamriel, but it goes through all Skyrim and, you know, what you can do in there. And that's another example. That's still one of the best video game trailers, I think, the whole time.
00:32:09
Speaker
and his name is Dover King. And you know, it's the swell of music and you're just like, oh so so cool. But I'm sure there was a live action and I could be wrong but I'm sure there was when it's just him slowly walking through the town and like the town's on fire, everybody's screaming, you know, they're running away panicked and he walks over to this dragon that's just standing there and the dragon roars and then it cuts the back black and it's like
00:32:36
Speaker
It gives you chills, I mean I'm even getting chills like talking about it. I need to go check that one out actually, maybe it's because I've seen it. It sounds awesome though. I can't even remember, I'm sure it sounds like it's a legit one. I've just typed in and you're right, it is a live action trailer. I've just typed in live action trailer and so yeah I need to go watch it actually after this. Yeah it sounds awesome. It is really cool and that is the kind of thing that like in Diage 2, the hype over, that yeah
00:33:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's because of that hype. And I would actually say that it's because of the hype that I caught the attention of it, or vice versa, that caught my attention. And I've been a fan of Skyrim ever since. And it actually makes me think that we should really do an episode on it sometime. I mean, I'm replaying Skyrim right now a decade later. I love it. It's that game that I think if I was forced to only play one game for the rest of my life, I would pick Skyrim.
00:33:29
Speaker
I love it. Which I feel bad because that kind of brings us onto our second game that we chose which is not as
00:33:36
Speaker
widely regarded. Well it is nowadays. On the up now. Yeah it's on the up now but on release it was kind of like a bit of an omni shambles and I feel bad for it because I feel as if they were actually trying to make like a good experience. Yeah. So I introduced Skyrim so I'm gonna let you introduce this one. So this is a game that has not lived up to the hype but has recovered from that so yeah sorry over to you.
No Man's Sky: From disappointment to redemption
00:34:04
Speaker
Nope, so this one is No Man's Sky by Hello Games, which was first announced back in 2013 and eventually released in June of 2016. Oh, sorry, no, August of 2016 actually. Yeah, and this game had, I want to say maybe, maybe with the exception of Cyberpunk,
00:34:23
Speaker
The biggest amount of hype I think surrounding a game that I can think of, because I remember this one vividly. I remember as it was being announced and people were crazy about the things they thought they could do in this game and the world and everybody was hailing it. It was probably going to be the best game of this generation, maybe of all time. Another one again that I think its first proper trailer was an E3 in 2014.
00:34:47
Speaker
And that was another very well-received... It was a gameplay trailer, and people were absolutely loving it and losing their minds over it. And the fact that it was supposed to be this random planet that they'd happened to stumble on for this trailer, and everyone was like, oh my God, look at all the wildlife and all the things going on and all the things you can do. Turned out that that was actually a scripted planet. Didn't say that that was one they designed for the trailer.
00:35:12
Speaker
They didn't say that at the time. But yeah, I mean, I think just an example of the hype really is the fact that so it was originally meant to be released in June 2016. But it got delayed by two months. And then the so that the head of Hello Games, Sean Murray, who was like all over like his face was everywhere, you know, when it came to promoting the game and everything, and he was he was really the
00:35:33
Speaker
PR man for it. So when it was delayed by two months, he got death threats from people because people were so hyped by this game. And then on the day it was released, apparently there was like three quarters of a million purchases on Steam alone. Just for the amount of people buying this game, pre-orders were through the roof. And then, yeah, it came out. And for most people, it was a massive, massive disappointment compared to the expectations that they had built up.
00:35:57
Speaker
built up for it. So it is weird because I feel like Hello Games is kind of, it's like the middle ground, I mean both obviously in this like discussion but also in the sense that you've got like Skyrim and Bethesda which is like a huge company and Hello Games which is, it was still an indie company but it wasn't really and correct me if I'm wrong but it wasn't depending on like Kickstarter or anything was it?
00:36:23
Speaker
No, no, no, it wasn't at all. For the most of their run, they were scraping by. The staff were relying on savings. They got an injection of cash from Sony. Sony saw the hype that was getting behind the game. They partnered up with them and that gave them an injection of cash. They were able to rely on that. They didn't have to go to Kickstarter or anything.
00:36:45
Speaker
that. But I think, again, that actually, like as good as it was to get that money, I think that actually made the problem worse in terms of the hype, having that custodian, we were really keen to push it and then, you know, brought all this extra publicity. And as well, just you talking about them being an indie studio, like
00:37:00
Speaker
It was a team that never exceeded 15 people working on this game. And comparing that to Skyrim's team was around 100. And Skyrim's a big game, but the big selling point of No Man's Sky was it was this procedurally generated universe with 18 quintillion different planets that you could potentially come across as you were journeying to the center of the universe. And the scale of that is beyond.
00:37:25
Speaker
You know, I can't even imagine a quintillion of anything, you know. So just to scale, but to have like only 15 people at max working on it, you know, it's too much. People should be glad that the game worked for most people. I mean, I had a lot of problems with people.
00:37:43
Speaker
game breaking stuff when it would get up but people should be glad they didn't just like set their computers on fire to be honest with the playstations when it when it came out well i mean that is true yeah it's i mean it came out for quite a lot didn't it it came out for the playstation 4 like first and foremost yeah i think they come up you see at the same time
00:38:02
Speaker
I can't remember, I remember. I think it did, yeah. Oh, it did because, sorry, I just gave the team purchase a stat, so it did come out on PC as well. Those two, and then it came out on Xbox later on. Because I'm just thinking like, I think, so like before it came out, there was like a leaked copy. So it had like the physical copies, which sorry, I'm kind of laughing.
00:38:21
Speaker
because the next game we're gonna get on to like physical copies and how not to do it but yeah they had to like physical copies and I think one of the shops or like distributors broke the embargo and they gave it out and someone put it up on eBay and they sold it for like ridiculous money for a video game that was $1,200 I think it was ridiculous amount of money you were just like how why would you pay for something that's
00:38:49
Speaker
I mean, I suppose it's the exclusivity. There was a hype behind it. Yeah. It shows the absolutely hype that people were feeling for this game. I mean, it's just maybe it's just me being innately Scottish, but you know, I can't imagine being more than like, well, now it is 60, I suppose is my limit, but... Even 60, I'm still... Even 60, yeah. I'd say that much for a game now.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah, even 16 of my fists kind of tightens ever so slightly and I'm like, no, don't do it, don't do it. You don't want to do this. You don't want to buy this game. It's like, I want to buy it. No, you don't want to buy it. But yeah, for this game, as she said, because of that hype, everybody was buying.
00:39:25
Speaker
have by but buying into it and it is it's just it's astounding because going back to what I was saying earlier like as far as I remember I know Sean Murray isn't it the guy yeah was the head of portable games he was like doing the press circuits and things for this
00:39:42
Speaker
But I mean between that and the word of mouth on the internet, because that is a hell of a thing. If you get famous on the internet, that's it. And it runs away from you. Especially for a game like this that wasn't really seen before. I mean it was. I think that was the selling point that they just thought
00:39:59
Speaker
well this is going to be a game that's going to be like nothing you've ever played and yeah then it turned out it was like something you played mainly yeah i was gonna say mainly a Bethesda game that was then live up to the hype before you know Bethesda actually done that with Fallout 76 and Fallout 4 but you know it's a very very boring game on release it seemed to be um
00:40:21
Speaker
And I think that was the problem, that was the big problem with being tied into Sony, is that not only then were, Sony were obviously hyping this to the moon. And with it being a small studio, the reason that Sean Murray, the head, had to go and do all this, they didn't have a PR department. They had 15 people who all had to work on developing this game. That's why Sean Murray had to do this. And to be honest, I feel like my opinion of Sean Murray has so much changed. Because I remember when he was making all the promises
00:40:50
Speaker
you know, the first like when it happened and everything and then it came out and it revealed that all these features were missing, you know, and I remember being like, I remember being such a liar and I was like, God, you know, he's just hyping his game up for for money and stuff, knowing his line. But the more I've read about him, the more I've heard about him, like, I'm just like, God, I feel so sorry for him. It was like,
00:41:10
Speaker
This is this guy like I feel like a kinder I was saying to you before the street. Yeah Kindred spirit as a as a as a fellow introvert myself Just like this person just being frost and I can imagine these were being frost onto this like public stage And you know like and just like how do you handle this when you have no PR training? You know, that's what these big studios have they have their they have their public relations, you know departments in the marketing departments for this very reason but
00:41:34
Speaker
This guy had to like, you know, deal with all this and you know, I can just see how it went when and he would say one thing and then the media and then the media machine would just spin it out and then, you know, it's like, oh, confirmed, you know, there's going to be base building. There's going to be, you know, multiplayer. There's going to be big space battles and just these things just went out of control and, you know, being tied into Sony as well. They had, they got stuck in a very kind of tight development window.
00:41:57
Speaker
So it got to that point where they realized, we can't put all this stuff in for release. But stuck with Sony, they could only get about a two month delay. Well, if they'd been on their own, they could have delayed it longer and actually put the stuff in. But that's the deal with the devil, I suppose, you have to make.
00:42:14
Speaker
I mean, no, how many times have we done that before? Whether it's like school or university or even work or something, you know? Back in the day. And it's like, you know, like someone says, oh, can you do this, this and that? And you're like, not a problem. Can do it. You can do it. You can do that. Because I mean, I've done that in work, you know, being like, oh, can you do this or that? I'm like, no problem. That's fine. Absolutely. And then you actually go back and research it and you're like,
00:42:39
Speaker
I totally thought that was all lies, oh no, I've a no-man sky myself, oh no, I've hyped it again, I've hyped it up on my own right saying that it's fine and then you know you actually look into it but I can imagine though that the pressure is, or rather it would have been like really difficult for the studio like that because I mean if you think
00:42:58
Speaker
about it like going back to what you were saying it's just the spotlight was on that company you know and they could have easily like you've seen so many people like just take the money be like well we try even bigger companies have done that yep for a lot of games and it's only after like a huge backlash that they kind of backtrack and be like oh no sorry jk whoa
00:43:20
Speaker
if you think of Battlefront 2 by EA where they had the loot boxes and they were like determined they were going to push that and because of like such a big backlash they had to remove it but it's like a lot of gaming companies kind of feel like like the bigger ones I mean they'll go ahead with something and kind of think oh we are just going to do it anyway and... Looking at you Gearbox Studios. Oh gosh. Were you listening? I mean what was their recent one?
00:43:46
Speaker
Well, they've had Duke Nukem Forever was one of theirs, they've had Aliens, Colonial Marines was another one, Battleborn, I'm sure there's another one that I'm forgetting, but they've had a trail of these things, these turds they've dumped out and left to sell up the carpet.
00:44:07
Speaker
I mean, alien culinary marines is a great example though. I remember watching a video on that and it was just so fascinating because I thought it was just a case of
00:44:18
Speaker
they had a game to develop, they failed at it in the story but just the amount of like issues that they came across like going back and forth blaming Sega and vice versa and you know getting split off to make another game. I think it was Borderlands actually, they called it. Yeah it was Borderlands. Yeah and yeah it was just all over the place wasn't it? Yeah. But yeah I do have some admiration though for old games
00:44:43
Speaker
They could have easily gone down that route and just said, oh it's a terrible game, let's slap like a half-assed multiplayer onto it. But no, they actually put in the work, they put in more features, and even after, and this is the thing that I was actually quite inspired by, even after the studio flooded, I thought that was amazing.
00:45:01
Speaker
that somehow even because I can't remember when it was but it was like some time anyway the yearly flooding of down south and yeah their studio just got completely wrecked and even after that and all that hardship they still came back to the game like I mean the thing that actually I thought was quite a shame was when they got invited for uh I think it was an award ceremony and they won I can't remember what it was for but they won something was it an innovative game or something like that I think but they never showed up
00:45:31
Speaker
to the first one because they didn't think they didn't believe in themselves they didn't think oh we're going to win and then all of a sudden like as soon as they found out they were like whoops just avoid the spotlight at that point you know for the shellacking they were they were taking
00:45:49
Speaker
But as you say, their commitment to this game, I totally agree, is so admirable. In fact, the most recent update was February this year. They've been continually pumping these updates out. And the game now has basically, I think, nearly everything that people expected would be in the finished game, the game on release. So their commitment
00:46:07
Speaker
And I think a lot of that stems from, you know, this was like Hello Games, like Baby. This was an idea they generated and they came up with and they were really passionate about. And I think that's part of the reason why they wanted to keep improving it and redeem themselves and everything. I compare it to something like Anthem.
00:46:29
Speaker
and which was like another one of these games that was very hyped at the time and then like came out and was an utter bomb and that from what I understand now was just died away and that was made by that was made by Bioware and you know people love Bioware people love the Mass Effect series and they were people were really excited for like their new kind of science fiction IP and it turned out to be just like a really poor destiny clone
00:46:50
Speaker
you know filled this up and it just wasn't a Bioware game at all and I just can't imagine that you know maybe there are people at Bioware who were passionate about it but I just can't imagine because it just seems so different from what Bioware traditionally make you know that I just like I can see people have been like who has the passion to actually like devote time to make this game better and improve it well at least with Hello Games this was there this was their baby you know because I mean before that I think it was like
00:47:17
Speaker
I mean, obviously it was Andy Games, but I can't remember what it was. Was it Joe Danger or something like that? Joe Danger was nothing before, yeah. And it was like a kind of racing, or not racing, but it was like the...
00:47:27
Speaker
stunt kind of game yeah yeah it was like that kind of um game so it wasn't like i mean it was popular enough but it wasn't exactly it wasn't yeah yeah yeah um yeah and it's amazing how they went from just nothing to yeah both infamy and success at the same time or not the same time but just like
00:47:49
Speaker
one after the other, which is admirable, which then kind of will get shot down in the minute. Because, you know, we've gone from a game that has lived up to the hype with Skyrim, we have gone with a game that didn't live up to the hype but then got better afterwards.
Mighty No. 9: Kickstarter success to failure
00:48:08
Speaker
And yeah, I'm gonna let you... I'm gonna let you learn with this one. So yeah, the third game we're going to talk about is Mighty No. 9. So where do we start with us?
00:48:18
Speaker
Now this was probably one of these ones that I was, it was a car crash that I was absolutely loved watching. And somebody who has, somebody who's never played a Mega Man game and like, not really, I'm not really a big one for platformers and stuff. So I didn't have really any investment and just this one was just.
00:48:33
Speaker
a macabre delight to watch. Anyway, sorry. So yeah, so my number nine was a game that was inspired by the Mega Man series and was actually made by the man, one of the kind of leading designers behind Mega Man, Ken, I'm gonna say his name wrong, but Kenji Inafune, I think. Sorry, apologies if I've like absolutely mangled that pronunciation. But yeah, so it was first announced in 2013.
00:48:59
Speaker
And this was a Kickstarter project, and this became the sixth most funded project in Kickstarter history as people lost their minds over this. It raised $900,000 in two days, and it then got an eventual total of $4 million.
00:49:15
Speaker
Reading about this was fascinating. Not only were they going to make this game, but then there were plans for a movie, there was going to be an anime series, there was going to be manga, they were already planning the sequels to the video game. It was Mega Man inspired and that same kind of challenging platforming action. It's the same guy. He almost looks like him.
00:49:36
Speaker
it almost looks like a kind of copy of Mega Man and there's the kind of robot bosses at the end of each stage and everything. So very much from that vein and because Mega Man had kind of died away by that point, I think there've been games subsequently but like you know in the kind of early 2010s Mega Man wasn't a franchise around but people really had a lot of fondness for it still as this really caught a lot of people's people's like enthusiasm and you know love for the series. Before I move on can I just talk about the Kickstarter rewards? Some of them they're on this absolutely
00:50:06
Speaker
fantastic so some of them like obviously you know Kickstarter the more money you donate you know that sometimes come people like give special prizes and stuff if you donate a certain amount of money so those ones like you you could get your face put in the game there was one where you could help design a boss and things like that that were like you like really good for like fans and stuff people would be with the enthused by the one that cracks me up though is the highest level one
00:50:27
Speaker
Yeah. So we're to donate $10,000 to mighty number nine. You got to have dinner with, with Kenji in a fee mate in Tokyo. Now it specifically said travel and lodgings were not included in this total. So you'd have to pay your own way there accommodation. So God knows how much that would cost as well. What I love is.
00:50:47
Speaker
Inifune doesn't speak English, and I don't know if he speaks any other language other than Japanese, so you're probably going to have a translator there for the whole dinner. It never actually stated where you're going to have dinner, so you may have gone to Tokyo to go get some chicken nuggets, to be honest. At that point, it gives you $10,000 plus your travel and your lodgings. And I was like,
00:51:09
Speaker
My god, I could see all the others makes, and perhaps if you're such a big fan of Mega Man, perhaps that was like a, you would absolutely love the chance to meet one of the leading people behind it, but to me I'm like that, I don't know, it's just too fraught that one with like, I don't know, embarrassment and everything from me, but I just had to laugh looking at that.
00:51:27
Speaker
I mean there's a lot of logistics to consider for something that should be on the board. It's like imagine if you paid enough money to get a free creme egg and then they were like, oh by the way we've hidden it somewhere in Edinburgh, go find it. We're not paying you travel there by the way. We're not paying you have to pay yourself and it's probably not worth it. It's like I like creme eggs but maybe not enough.
00:51:52
Speaker
to travel all the way to there and it's surreal, isn't it? It's just surreal. It really was. Do you know what? We joked about Skyrim and we still joke about Skyrim being ported to everything. The amount of platforms that this game was going to be put onto
00:52:08
Speaker
So it was going to be developed for the 3DS, the Wii U, the Xbox One, the Xbox 360, the PS3, the PS4, PS Vita, PC, Mac and Linux. All these things it was going to come out on. I mean, eventually it came out on a select few consoles and systems when it came out in...
00:52:30
Speaker
It was 2016 again, but I've actually forgotten when it was in 2016, but it came out for a select few systems. Then it arrived on things like the 360, I think the PS3 a few months afterwards. It never ended up arriving on the handheld consoles like the Vita or the 3DS. It just gave up on that, even though that had been a funding process. If they reached a certain amount of money, they were going to release it.
00:52:51
Speaker
on those platforms and just like I was looking through like um the funding totals and stuff and just the promises they were making like so it was just like we're gonna add we're gonna add more stages we're gonna add more bosses we're gonna add more modes you know we're gonna have all these different versions if we make this money and just the scale of this thing just seemed to be going like out of control
00:53:09
Speaker
And as I said, at the same time, they were trying to get money for an anime, manga, and everything. And also as well, at the same time, they were kick-starting other projects as well. There was obviously the anime series. There was another game called Red Ash, which was another kick-starter project that they were trying to do at the same time. And then Inafune was also working on that game Recor, which came out on Xbox One a few years back. It wasn't very well-received either. So just the attention was split.
00:53:37
Speaker
everywhere and you know and that's kept asking for more money the funders and everything and it just they got it as well but like oh i just the scale of this thing just seems to be getting out of hand it's a weird one it's like you're kind of thinking what were they thinking
00:53:52
Speaker
in terms of just the entire scale. As you said the entire scale of it and wanting it in every single console because I'm sorry like I don't imagine any child saying do you know what I really want from a Wii U which in itself is a sentence that would never exist but do you know what I want from my Wii U? I want 90 number nine like because that's what people were saying they were outraged that they paid like
00:54:17
Speaker
or sorry they ended up getting four million. I was actually laughing because when I was researching this I was watching a trailer for that same animated series and it's basically this stereotypical oh look at you know this bumbling you know protagonist and all of this rubbish. I was like oh no here we go yeah it was like something put in the YouTube comments we paid four million for this.
00:54:44
Speaker
and I mean like when you think about it the amount it must cost to have to produce this to you know like to produce this to other consoles yeah and things like that and it's like you have to cut your horses because I think it came out during that transitional period where everyone was going from the Xbox 360 to well Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
00:55:07
Speaker
to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so it was like they wanted the best of both worlds but at the same time they wanted it out on the 360 and the PlayStation 3 because that's the consoles that were you know they were self prevalent because I mean it's like even now like not many people have I mean technically they do but there's a whole like
00:55:27
Speaker
issue behind that where people have got like they've still got their Xbox ones and their PlayStation 4s because even though we move on to the next generation you're still going to have like people who are stuck in the last generation for the first kind of year or the first life cycle. So them stretching their self definitely didn't help at all and there's just two things I want to bring up about this game which I found hilarious. The first one was their marketing. Have you heard their tagline?
00:55:56
Speaker
Oh yeah, is this the one in the advert? Yeah, the anime one. Yeah, so usually when you get like one of these games, you know, like let's say Duke Nukem or a game that's trying to be hip and cool and look at us, we're the good guys and not with us. And their tagline, I shut you note, was... Make the bad guys cry like an anime fan on prom night. Yeah.
00:56:20
Speaker
What a slap in the face to your audience. If people are fans of Mega Man, chances are there might be an overlap in people who are anime fans. You're making an anime for this game as well!
00:56:37
Speaker
It just, it does, it seems like a backhand compliment. Like, give me the money, now get the hell out of the way, go cry, you nerd. It's like, you nerd, go cry into your manga. Yeah, like, can you imagine them saying that for like, you know, Call of Duty or Fortnite, or like, God forbid, Halo, being like, I know. But like, you would cry worse than, I don't know, like, you would cry worse. You'd cry into your active Doritos or whatever. Yeah, yeah, cry worse than a Dorito-driven madman.
00:57:05
Speaker
or a Mountain Dew Deviant, you know, it's like, no! It was stupid, it was absolutely stupid, but I think it was even worse, and I think you told me about this ages ago, but apparently one of the awards for the Kickstarter was a, so basically before this game, I think this game got funding, didn't it, from Deep Silver? Eventually. Yes, I think it did after the Kickstarter.
00:57:32
Speaker
exploded basically and was so popular. Yeah, Deep Silver, the publisher, got involved and helped promotion with it. And I think that was the reason why they got physical copies. But before that, oh boy, before that, one of the Kickstarter
00:57:50
Speaker
promotion one of the kickstarter rewards was that you could get a copy of the game but because it was all digital it was like what they did was they made up these boxes they were like the old nes boxes like what they used to do with mega man but they didn't have a physical game inside so they just had a code inside of it and they also had like a manual they printed the manual too big so it wouldn't even fit inside the box
00:58:20
Speaker
So you had a manual that was too big. You had a box with nothing but a code. And then when Deep Silver got involved, you know, and they said, oh, we're bringing in a physical copy. And people were like, oh, do we are we eligible for this because we put so much money into it? And they were like, no, no, you're not. It's like, no, what are you doing?
00:58:41
Speaker
Do you know what's even funnier like? So you got your digital code right, okay? You got your digital code in your box, in your pointless box with a manual that didn't fit, like the manual that was too big for it. And then the digital code didn't even work for some people. No, it didn't work. They couldn't get it to work at all. And then if you did get it to work...
00:59:00
Speaker
There were so many games. Talk about Skyrim. This was getting to Fallout 76 levels of game-breaking bugs. The graphics were downgraded from what the trailers originally showed. The graphics were downgraded to the point that people were comparing the explosions. Apparently it looked like cheap pizza. It was just a cacophony. The voice acting was terrible. The level design was dull. Everything about it just went wrong.
00:59:26
Speaker
There was one quote I saw. So like in his defense, Inafune kind of came in and really apologized for like the absolute shoddy state of it. But his translator had an absolute peach of a quote as well afterwards. So he responded to the criticism and he was talking and he was also kind of apologizing as well. But he was basically, he basically said that like, he said, well, I'm not getting my 2D side scrolling fill. And at the end of the day, even if it's not perfect, it's better than nothing. Just like, oh my God, have some, have a bit of like,
00:59:56
Speaker
tomato ketchup on your on your shit sandwich it's better than nothing because you're not getting any megaman it's like yeah and then a couple of years later it became irrelevant because capcom did like bring out megaman like 11 i think it was and it's like uh just there was a whole just it's like a spiral of like just complete and utter mistakes mismanagement just everything
01:00:23
Speaker
like you watch the videos and they're all saying the same thing that it's just like there wasn't any great communication there wasn't any like I mean even some stores when people were asking about it were like we've got no idea what's going on because the game company hasn't told us what's going on in this game so it's like
01:00:40
Speaker
I don't know it almost feels a bit brash to think it got delayed as well like that's the thing about this game got delayed for like for over it for about a year it was meant to be spring 2015 it was supposed to come out it got delayed until june 2016 and this was the state of it in a year like at least no like no man's sky like they had two months okay so fair enough that's not a lot of time to like correct things this had a year and it was still an absolute train wreck
01:01:05
Speaker
Jesus, that is far too long to settle in a game. Do you want, speaking of too long, do you want one final fun fact about this game? Oh do tell, do tell. So this this absolutely blew my mind but okay so the credit sequence for Mighty No. 9 is apparently about three hours and 48 minutes long because
01:01:42
Speaker
You should look at this.
01:01:49
Speaker
in a shorter time than it would take to watch the Mighty No. 9 credits. Oh Jesus, like I can, I get like the idea of it. I mean do games like not have, you know how you get like a gallery section and some games are like a kind of bonus part? Yeah. Would it not make more sense to put the credits there maybe? Or the names there? I don't know but
01:02:14
Speaker
I actually did not know that, that is absolutely... I found that out really, I was like that is... What way to end?
01:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, that is just ridiculous. I'm not sitting through, no offence to them, but I'm not sitting through three and a half hours of credits. You could play, God knows, you could play anything in that time. You could play Skyrim, you could play No Man's Sky, you can play, God, you could probably fix Cyberpunk in that time. But you could do...
01:02:45
Speaker
You could do anything that's more fulfilling. I could think of about a quintillion things that are more fulfilling than playing or watching the Mighty No. 9 credit sequence. That's just ridiculous. That has actually left me speechless. I can't believe that.
01:03:02
Speaker
and not believe that they would have three and a half hours. See, this is the thing I was talking about earlier. This idea of pacing hype on nostalgia and goodwill. Because this is what I was saying with games like Yooka-Laylee and things, where they say this is a spiritual successor too.
01:03:18
Speaker
you know XYZ and it's that idea of you're gonna get a gamble like as you said with that Castlevania successor that was great that worked out for the best whereas if you look at Mega Man 9 you know they had all the building blocks there because there wasn't at the time anyway there wasn't a Mega Man game out
01:03:40
Speaker
so yeah yeah there wasn't anything challenging them if you know what i mean it was like the only thing that was challenging them was their own nostalgia and yeah they just they they messed that up and i don't know how on every level i don't know anything about this game went right no i don't think so and i mean there was just so much controversy with everything i mean there's like tons more that we could go into detail about but i mean where do we even begin like
01:04:10
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, we could probably have an episode as long as the credit sequence discussing the saga of this game. I mean, probably. I mean, between that and there was a whole, was there not like a thing to do with Gamergate as well based on this? Oh, was there? That part was cool. Oh, was there something to do with like the, one of the side characters and the supporting characters or something?
01:04:33
Speaker
I think so. It was either that or it was like someone who was like a consultant artist, I think she was or something like that. And I can't remember if it was she drew a side character or she drew 90 number nine or whatever it was. I think his name's actually Beck, which I actually didn't know until I looked it up there. Yeah, Betty Paul, yeah. It's like instead of Mega Man, which is apparently Rock and Roll, I think. I think that's their thing.
01:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, Beck and Cole's a really weird pun name. It's like, imagine if we were in a game of our cold chips and cheese. It's like, what? It's like, OK. That's better than Beck and Cole, I think.
01:05:14
Speaker
probably yeah at least it makes me think you know what this is bad but i can go get some chips and cheese just wash away the taste of this poor game yeah there was something to do with that um i don't know if she like drew like a gender bent version of the character or i don't know like something happened anyway and yeah it was just a bit weird the kind of fallout with that you know it was a whole gamer game and you know the whole like invite in there and just
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, it came out at a time that I think just absolutely destroyed it. I think the kind of landscape of gaming at the time, just like... Because it was, as I've said before, it was changing between one generation to the next, and yeah, it did help that they were just messing up at every possible turn. Yeah. And like, I don't know, booking dinner reservations with that four million?
01:06:06
Speaker
remember what someone said but they basically said like you know they ended up getting four million and someone did some calculations like a kind of rough calculation and I don't know what they accounted for I think it was probably like paying staff and you know like
01:06:20
Speaker
exporting the game to other things, but I still left them with like 2.4 million. So I was like, what was it going into? Because I think, just kind of quickly before we wrap up, was it not that they had the money there, but then they had to do a second Kickstarter or a third one to get the voice actors?
01:06:39
Speaker
Oh God, that was it. That was one of the things, of course, you're right. Yeah, they had another one, like, oh, we're going to need voice acting. You know, God, they just kept asking for more. They probably did. They kept biting the hand that was feeding them. And that was like, there was no real management there, was there? No, I just, yeah, I think that's one of the big things we will level against this. It was just so badly mismanaged on every level.
01:07:02
Speaker
I think the company's called Concept or something was like the company behind this game and I think yeah people just leveled the old mismanagement accusation at them which you know seemed very fair. No wonder they did deserve it in a way. I mean again as we said we could go on about this but it's exactly what hype does to a game you know and the negative sense.
01:07:27
Speaker
So as we said, we have Skyrim, which of course is... And again, there's other examples of games.
Personal hype experiences and reflections
01:07:34
Speaker
I mean, if I'm looking at my own personal... Is there any personal experiences that you have of games where you were hyped for them? And either it was up to the hype or not? Oh yeah, I can definitely get one that didn't live up to the hype. I was very, very excited for Call of Duty World War II.
01:07:50
Speaker
When it was announced, it was coming out, I was really excited for it. I was really longing for the return to the World War II setting, and I was really excited. It was the Call of Duty game that I actually pre-ordered, and that's the first time I've done that in ages, I think since modern warfare 3.
01:08:06
Speaker
I think I remember, I don't know if you remember this, but I'm sure I remember when I got it and it arrived, I'm sure I remember taking a picture of it and sending it like a, I think it was a Snapchat, but it was like a Facebook message or whatever. I think I sent it to you and people would be like, please be good, please be good. And then it's not a bad game, it's just disappointing. I was disappointed by
01:08:29
Speaker
by what it was. Games living up to the hype. I mean, I remember GTA 5 being, you know, like the hype around that and the fact that that started with like four pictures, like they released like four screenshots. Everybody lost their mind, you know, over that. And I remember that being really excited for that. And that was one that totally lived up to the hype. I think it's like most rockstar, most rockstar games like post GTA 3 have had huge hype trains, but they've kind of always delivered, you know, again, a company that has a lot of experience with that.
01:08:57
Speaker
But yeah, like, apart from though, there are two examples of sand in my mind. What about yourself? Well, I would say GTA as well, because that was one of the games that, like, I wasn't really into. Because I think I've touched on this in past episodes, but as I said, like, my parents didn't let me play, like, games that were above my
01:09:16
Speaker
age. So if it was a 15 game and I was only 14 they would think about it depending on what kind of game it was. But if it was like 15 and I wanted to play GTA they'd be like no absolutely not because it's an 18.
01:09:32
Speaker
Like, so I got into the series kind of a bit later on, but I remember playing five and everyone going nuts about it and I was like, okay, okay, I'll try it. And then, yeah, I just absolutely loved five. I mean, like, nowadays it's kind of a bit, like, stale. But I mean, that's the same for any game that's kind of overhyped and then it just keeps going. Another one, of course, being, I mean, the Witcher I haven't completed, but from what I played of it, I can understand why people liked it. Yeah.
01:10:00
Speaker
going back to an example of one that failed for the hype, surprise surprise, Sonic 06, because, and this is a confession time, that was one of the reasons I really wanted to buy a Playstation 3. Bad choice at my part. No, it was because back then I remember going through playing
01:10:19
Speaker
you know like Sonic Adventure and then I think the last game before they switched over to the next gen was Shadow of the Hedgehog which was a weird game because it was meant to be like this gritty kind of not a reboot but like a gritty story but they used the same plasticy models as they did for Sonic Heroes which are a lot more bright and bubbly and yeah just both of them were just a mess. I think Sonic Heroes was a bit better
01:10:49
Speaker
but I wasn't a fan of it personally. Up until that point, it was like, that was the tone they were going for. Because I was an edgy teenager, what can I say? Or an edgy child, where I was like, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, like, had semi-serious stories, considering the world it's in, because you know, it's still a cursed hedgehog, but it was really good. When they said that they were going to go for a more realistic look to it, like, I was hyped because of Emperor. I had
01:11:17
Speaker
like dial-up internet at the time, that's how long ago it was and I remember like trying to download this video for Sonic 06 and it took ages because you know it was like with like dial-up internet it just took absolutely ages to download this video and it was literally just a video of Sonic standing there and I think it was like Kingdom Valley the level's called it's like the one where it's all these floating platforms and things and they looked amazing because back then obviously those kind of graphics were
01:11:47
Speaker
you know fantastic and that was a game I really hyped about and then I started hearing bad things but I was like oh no it's probably just people who don't like Sonic and then yeah play the game and Jesus yeah so yeah this this doesn't live up to the hype I mean yeah
01:12:03
Speaker
I think that was a game that was supposed to revolutionise Sonic right back into the next day and rebuild his popularity and then it just became a Final Fantasy game with Sonic.
01:12:18
Speaker
it's like they made it. See that's the thing about a game like Sonic or it's like you know when you see the Unreal mods for games? Yeah. And it's like oh look it's Mario running beside realistic deer or something like that. It looks really weird because those two art styles clash. And the same with Sonic 06 it's like all you saw was the level design and it's like oh that's cool but then you see him beside like regular humans and it's like this isn't
01:12:46
Speaker
No, this is weird. This is far too weird. But yeah, that was a kind of turning point for me. The other one I suppose would be Empire Total War. Oh, yeah. Because I absolutely loved Medieval 2 Total War. I think it's one of my favourite strategy games of all time. I mean, would you consider it a strategy game?
01:13:09
Speaker
Right, oh yeah, definitely. It's real-time strategy, no doubt. Which is a type of strategy game, so yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, I absolutely love that game. And I think we both kind of share that passion for that series. Yeah. Up until a certain point. Because I remember with the Empire Total War hearing that, oh, it's instead of focusing on Europe and the Middle East and over the hell that part of Russia was and that part, you know.
01:13:37
Speaker
and the tiny bit of America, it's like, oh, you can explore the entire world and build up your empire, this empire, total war. But yeah, it was just, it was not my cup of tea. Like, if anybody else likes it, I'm not going to kind of, you know, go, oh, I can't believe you like it. But for me personally, it just did not live up to night. And then I think games after that just went further and further down like Rome to
01:14:05
Speaker
for example that was a game I was quite hyped for and then I played it and I just did not get into it because of all the micromanaging the you know the fact that a lot of the like factions are behind a paywall and things which they didn't review yeah that was awful and they're still doing that to this day so it's like what is the endgame here so
01:14:25
Speaker
yeah it's it's again it's like banking on the nostalgia to hype it up and then just yeah just letting you down one last time before we kind of finish up is there any final thoughts you want to say about hype
01:14:41
Speaker
I mean, I think what I take away from the discussion that we've had there is I think video game hype is incredibly dangerous. I was kind of like way up the pros and cons of it. And, you know, like I was like, there are pros to it. I think hype after a game is released when it's been proven to be good.
01:14:58
Speaker
You know, is a good thing and can really help a game, but I just think, I think pre-release hype is just so, it's just so fraught with peril. I just, I just think people get such unrealistic expectations of what things, you know, and that that was like, say the comparison between like Skyrim and Mighty No. 9 and, you know,
01:15:16
Speaker
No Man's Sky. Everybody was like, with No Man's Sky, everybody was like, oh, we can't wait for this, like, you know, all these specific features that have apparently been promised, you know, and everything. And then just when these didn't show up, everybody just like outraged and, you know, like, sending more death threats to Sean Murray into Hello Games. And, you know, while as with Skyrim, it was, you know, much more about exploring the world and everything. I just think it's like you set yourself up for disappointment, to be honest.
01:15:42
Speaker
like with hype I just think it's such a dangerous thing and it does have pros I say but yeah just just reading about these games I was like it's such a dangerous animal it's definitely something that I feel as if it's something like the difference between like someone trying to sell you something legitimate and a car salesman yeah you know what I mean like because you can get someone who's legitimate was trying to sell you like a really good game
01:16:06
Speaker
or something and they're like oh check out this game it's you know it's got this it's got that being very honest very transparent and then you've got the car salesman who's like oh yeah you can you can explore planets and do this and that and it just reminds me do you know what reminds me of you know those cheap mobile ads
01:16:24
Speaker
in the mobile games and it's like oh look at this saucy scene or look at this gameplay and it's like when you actually see the game in action it's like yeah this is this is just Candy Crush 2.0 isn't it? Because again that's like a whole other topic in itself but you know it's like building up something else and being like it's just like this game that you like or it's just that and you're like just chill
01:16:54
Speaker
Like, calm down, be your own thing and yeah, just, like I don't think hype is inherently a bad thing and people who buy into the hype, I don't think they're inherently to blame but yeah, it's just that kind of caution that's needed, isn't it? Yeah, you just need to, I think you need to be a bit realistic, you know?
01:17:15
Speaker
And be excited for a game. I'm not saying don't be excited for games and everything. But hiding, just be careful. It's not just for games. I think just move a lot of things in life. Don't set yourself up for a fall in that way. There is something to be said for being just a tad cautious. Yeah, just be careful with the hype. That's all I'm saying.
01:17:37
Speaker
Any group? Otherwise you've got a cyberpunk situation going on or even worse the mighty number nine situation where you're stuck in a restaurant. I was going to say where you're stuck in a restaurant with the head of a company that you don't know. With your game manual doesn't fit into your box.
01:17:56
Speaker
Oh, what a travesty. What an absolute travesty. As always, Adam, thank you so much for coming on this hype train today. Well, thank you very much. I hope I lived up to the hype. Oh no, definitely. Can't say the same for myself, but you know what? Two sides of the same coin. You're too harsh on yourself. Oh no, I'm not harsh enough. You're the glue that holds it all together. Don't hype me up.
Closing and social media invitations
01:18:22
Speaker
So yeah, thank you all so so much for stopping by and listening. So yeah, you can see more of my content on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and of course Twitch under the name Satsanami42. If you want to listen to more episodes of the Chatsanami podcast, you can listen to us on Anchor, Spotify and All Good Podcasts distributors.
01:18:45
Speaker
and yeah as always stay safe stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated bye guys bye