Press Pass: How Hype Helps (and Hurts) High-Profile Hits

Can pure hype prop up a clunker in the reviews? Do overhyped games get punished by critics? Press Pass investigates.
10/23/2008 6:27 PM | 2 Comments | Page 2 of 2

But pre-release hype isn't an automatic ticket to a perfect review score. In many cases, all that hype raises unrealistic expectations about games that can't live up to their promise. "One thing I have seen with regard to reviewers is their [cautious] attitude toward a game that the publisher starts hyping too soon," said venerable game journalist Bill Kunkel. "When you're looking at a game at conferences and trade expos for the third or fourth year, you can begin to smell panic at some level of its development cycle. I think reviewers become wary of games that are hyped for too long before delivery."

Many journalists pointed to Will Wright's Spore as a game that suffered from an overly long and ambitious buildup. "After all of the hype, Spore was destined to either walk on water or get slammed," as Kent put it. And while Spore didn't exactly get slammed in the reviews, many reviewers seemed to punish the game for not living up to its promise. "I've talked to Spore reviewers who said that if you don't expect anything -- especially from the buildup in recent years -- then it's a great game," said one journalist who chose to remain anonymous. "Did Spore not achieve every bullet point Will Wright ever noted? Who cares? That's not a review, that's a postmortem."

It seems that, at some point, too much hype can be harmful to a game, a fact that some at EA may have noticed before Spore's release. "I remember that when I went to check out a hands-on [demonstration] of Spore this spring, I was startled by it," Gamer 2.0's Perez said. "The EA rep continuously harped on that point by basically saying repeatedly that 'it's not a very deep game.'"

But while the hype can hurt a good game, most journalists seem to agree that it can't help the reviews for a truly bad game. "When Enter the Matrix came out and didn't live up to expectations, everybody knew it," said Official Xbox Magazine's Dan Amrich. "But I didn't hear anybody saying, 'Well, I was looking forward to this, so I guess it's okay.' I think advance hype for underperforming titles only does damage; the game is more likely to become a punch line."

What hype can do, though, is force an outlet to pay attention to a game. "I object to big marketing campaigns because they effectively tell us what to cover in the first place," said game blogger Rachel Webster. "If enough money backs a title, and if the fans and publicity force it onto our radar, then we have to review it prominently, even if it's Too Human. ... The press should always have the power to ignore. Even when we deal with blockbusters."

In the end, while pre-release hype can't carry or sink a game on its own, its presence can change the nature of the race for attention. "If a publisher is hyping up a game and it fails to succeed in delivering upon that hype, the game is basically going to run a 40-yard dash and burst out of the gate, then come to a stop almost immediately after," said GamerNode Editor-in-Chief Brendon Lindsey. "On the other hand, if a game isn't hyped that much and then surpasses any and all expectations, it will usually run a marathon and start off really slow, then finish with a burst."