Hype is a dangerous commodity within online communities. It is sought, and disliked in equal measure. Like an addict, there are the highs before the lows. The slow, steady realisation that the rolling stone of excitement may, more often than not, find itself brought to a halt by an immovable object, known as reality. To ride the wave of hype is a publisher and developer dream. A free underbelly of excitement that ripples through forums and conversations, spreading its tentacles thick and wide until it strangles itself, succumbing under its own weight of expectation…
Often a rudderless ship, hype cannot ever be fully controlled. Developers and publishers certainly try (some with more success than others), yet it is the choice of the targeted audience as to whether they choose to play along. These anonymous individuals capable of making or breaking an online game, through words and wallets, with only one of three outcomes. A fanfare, a slow bleed or swift end.
APB was the latter; a travesty of game design and the swiftest demise of an MMO in history. The media rumblings that something wasn’t quite right coming long after tester pleas. For all itsfaults, the hype surrounding APB remained at fever pitch until its opening moments. Where APB succeeded was in retaining its own hype for as long as it did. For all that it was on paper, and for all that it lacked, the very nature of a developers control within an MMO allowed Realtime Worlds to be in a privileged position; to hide its problems.
Non disclosure agreements (NDA) and closed BETA stages are the shackles which bind a community to secrecy. Those lucky enough to be part of them are as passionate about being chosen, as they are about wanting the best from the product. Community members acting as spies and ‘ratting out’ those who choose to break the NDA are common place, in order to prevent unwelcome fallout. These strict controls are manipulative as much as they are necessary. There are those that do speak out in the blind hope of revealing the truth, but these pleas often fall on deaf ears. They are tainted as disgruntled BETA players, or liars by the public community (whether through denial or ignorance) while those under the NDA tend to shy away, for fear of reprisal and revocation of access rights.
Staff from Realtime Worlds have spoken out on the studios demise, sighting complacency and ignorance as the deciding factor in APBs shortcomings, yet it was surely hype (the inevitable sales this achieves) and the prospect of riches that played its part. For all the issues that the game may have had, the self-contained BETA forums held the key to the reality of APB, a reality Realtime Worlds chose to ignore. Yet it wasn’t until the Open BETA, days away from launch, that these issues reared their ugly humiliating heads. The hype finally meeting the immovable object.
Public exposure of MMOs is a dangerous act. A master class of marketing is necessary to ensure hype surrounding the product not only continues, but builds further momentum. Dummy terminals and strict control of content reduce the prospect of this ever occurring, these contrived showcases only ever display the game in its best light. The fear of a single attack from a reputable media source can send shockwaves through community boards and newsletters. “It’s early BETA” and “it’s 10 months away from release” are wheeled out as defensive mechanisms to fight the reality. This denial from the public community and betrayal from the developer are common place as one supports the other. In truth the games foundations are probably built on nothing more than sticks and sand. For as long as the hype continues, whether publically or privately, the publisher and developer hope to tap into this, to secure as many willing addicts-of-hype as possible.
Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, Global Agenda and Aion (to name but a few) have all utilised the sneak-peak marketing process to drum up excitement about their product, while retaining incredibly strict NDA’s, allowing the developer to truly hide their products shortcomings. And yet despite all this, and as someone who has certainly been guilty, the products are inevitably purchased. For all their faults, the captivation of a new MMO is too alluring for those searching for the next World of Warcraft.
Having been part of the Aion Chinese BETA, it was interesting to read the European forums eagerly awaiting the game. The disparity between the information told by the developers, and the reality of the gameplay was enormous. The blind faith shown by the games community, having never had the opportunity to play themselves, was staggering. Hearing a developer state there would be a revision to the quest system to ensure no grind for a Western audience made me smile at the time, knowing the exact opposite was the truth. Based on the time frame to launch, and the fundamental mechanics of the game, this was an impossibility. The hype continued.
Inevitably, the premise of hype is not restrictive to MMOs only. All games attempt to drum up a level of anticipation and excitement before launch, but many do not offer such public access as that of MMO’s and often ship in much better ‘state’. There is the fundamental expectation that wrongs can be made right with the post-product support that an MMO requires. This is evidently why players pay £35 for the product, and £10 a month in fees. “We’ll patch it later.” however is becoming an uncomfortable phrase within the genre; an easy escape route from the restrictive time frames and lack of foresight that developers and publishers show. Yet this no longer matters once the addicts-of-hype are already on board, for their money has been spent. A success in the eyes of the marketing department.
Warhammer Online should not have launched when it did, as it was at least one year away from being the product it should have been. Yet I parted with my money, despite playing the game throughout the BETA process, having seen the game for what it really was. Did I buy into the hype, alongside 1 million other people on the back of “We’ll patch it later.”? I think I did.
It will be a brave developer whose hype is built on truth, as opposed to half-truths. To finally abolish with the NDA’s and allow the community to see the product for what it really is, warts and all. Perhaps only then will we see a greater quality of MMO and less disappointment from their respective communities.
Email the author of this post at lewisb@tap-repeatedly.com
Some good topics here. One that is not mentioned (and understandably so as the post-demise communication from Realtime Worlds wa basically all about saying “We are all guilty”) is that hype and design are often completely separate processes, as in, done by different people within one company (or more than one company) and without these people being necessarily aware of what those other people are doing. We all know that it’s not uncommon for marketing departments to have a say in a game’s design even thoy don’t know what the game deisn is bout and how things are being done there. Vice versa – designers often have no idea what the marketing department is on about when the game hype is being drummed up and they are often as restricted by NDAs and other papers as anyone else.
The media of course does not help as, as a rule, all pre-release writeups about a game are positive. Most journalists say this is because they want to be positive and give the game a fair chance yadda yadda yadda, but more often than not it’s again a case of NDAs combined with the fact that the publishers will simply stop giving you access to pre-release content if you keep crapping on it pre-release and ruining their hype.
It’s a strange metagame we all play. Absolute disasters like, for example Damnation or Clash of the Titans were getting very positive pre-release writeups before they were destroyed in reviews. exceptions, like three IGN’s editors shitting all over Dead Space 2’s multiplayer the other day, are very rare.
Combine this with the negative hype that will sometimes follow unreasonable hype and you really have the stuff of south American telenovelas sometimes. APB managed to escape Daikatana backlash by the skin of the tooth, just because Brits still seem to be a little more hype shy in their pre-release boasting.
Spore is a perfect example. From what I understand gamers saw certain opportunities for gameplay and just assumed their own personal visions would be the reality. Once they discovered the game was nothing more than several diluted minigames of old-time favorites like Civilization, Simcity, and Pacman, well, we all know what happened. My 12-year old daughter loves the game, so kudos there.
Desperate fans are still clinging to Elemental: War of Magic’s hype like the last piece of broken timber in a stormy sea. Stardock has promised massive support and patches, of course, but it seems doubtful they can salvage this train wreck and deliver on most of their promises. We all know Elemental’s story, but it’s still interesting because many are still clinging to hype ever AFTER its release. I cannot fault them for their loyalty. I’m still not buying the game until next summer, if at all.
Thank you for the thought-provoking article, Lewis!
Great comments, Lewis. And very true.
The industry manipulates press through NDAs, blackouts, and exclusives, ensuring that much of the hype they want is fed through specific mouthpieces. I can’t count the number of NDAs I’ve been asked to sign before being shown something at a show or conference.
Games – MMOs or not – are incredibly complex. It’s very easy to miss the forest for the trees, and developers fall prey to this constantly. What will later get reviled as a terrible control structure is second nature to a developer who’s been working on the game for 36 months. Then they’re baffled when the derisive press rolls in. And almost inevitably they dismiss forum chatter and beta feedback, when instead they should be going through it carefully and assessing their game for vulnerabilities.
No one expected APB to implode the way it did. In my circles, journalists and analysts would talk concernedly about it, yes – our conversations mostly focusing on the fact that all we’d really seen was the character generator, a few choreographed demos, and a shocking amount of concept art. But I don’t think anyone assumed the disaster it turned out to be.
“We’ll patch it later” is going to get worse, not better, due to the industry’s perception of rampant piracy and the fact that it feels threatened by used game sales. They won’t call them “patches,” though, they’ll call them “DLC.” It wouldn’t surprise me if down the road we’re paying $60 for a box with a demo, the rest of the game delivered dripfeed style through paid downloadable content. All these problems intersect, from hype to the DLC invasion. It’s all part of a larger industry issue, one that really needs to be corrected.
Elemental was certainly something I was going to mention Jason, another failure of hype. Yes as you say, there really are people still believing its hype. It’s all very odd.
In truth, the only game having ever lived up to the hype from a personal perspective is World of Warcraft. The subtle buzz around the internet as it got closer and closer, for it to finally arrive and actually be as amazing as everyone’s said was truly an incredible achievement. I’ll never forgot those first few months at being amazed at what they actually achieved, at a level of polish I’d never seen before.
Of course, Blizzard still has strict NDAs and incredibly strict rules surrounding their BETA tests, but you know Blizzard do it for sheer quality control as well as to maintain the excitement around the product. Realtime Studios on the other hand I believe abused the position far too much, to have people believe APB was in a much better state than it was.
I’m not sure we’ll see another MMO (I use that term loosely in APBs case) implode like APB did.
@ Meho, I think that is sometimes part of the problem. That journalisms themselves are shackled by “giving games a fair chance”. Why must they? Lets hit them where it hurts, for the shake up developers need. Thankfully TAP doesn’t fall into that bracket.
“Thankfully TAP doesn’t fall into that bracket.”
No it doesn’t Lewis, providing Guild Wars 2 delivers! hiokhiok 😉
“We’ll patch it later” has been a dangerous phrase ever since consoles had an internet connection and a hard drive! I think my PS3 spends more time updating itself and patching games than y’know, actually running them.
To quote Charlie Brooker:
“It’s like a TV station that broadcasts nothing but progress bars.”
Anyway, great article Lewis. I’d argue that post-release hysteria is as bad as pre-release hype. All the big games, all reaching for the 90 marks. I can’t say whether they’re true having not played most of them, but many people I’ve spoken to don’t regard either Halo: Reach or Starcraft II very highly. Being the slow bastard I am, by the time I get round to buying a game the smoke has well and truly cleared which saves a lot of pissing about.