Showing games during the development

Please excuse me Doom Dude:

Doom Dude said in another thread:
I'm glad they're keeping a tight lid on Doom 4. I wish other developers wouldn't show as much as they do before a game gets released. If I had it my way, games would be announced a month away from release. :p

I already know too much about Skyrim and Rage. heh.

That's something I have been thinking about and I always wondered: do you guys agree with Doom Dude, or do you think they should show parts of the game along the development proccess?

I used to think that they should show some concept art and something like that at least once a year, to keep the fans interested, but I changed my mind. Showing the game too early can lead to the exact opposite effect IMO. Not to mention that other developers could, umm, "borrow" some ideas.

So what do you think?

I think generating interest when you've really got something to show is alright, but otherwise I'd encourage not making too much of a fuss, just in case you end up taking a bit longer to develop the game than you'd hoped (DNF would be an example where this was unavoidable though, as it was pretty much finished on more than one occaission).

I prefer to have very little information on upcoming games. I've already seen too much about Mass Effect 3 from the Game Informer snippets I've read.

How else am I going to know if I would enjoy playing a game?

I used to read a lot about games in development on near release, but i was always slightly dissapointed because the language used in articles always made things sound fancier than they really turned out to be (also my imagination would get carried away). The result was always slight dissapointment with the final release.

The final straw was Fable though, the developer outright lied about what was going to be in the game. The game was good when taken on it's own merits, but never lived up to the hype and wasn't even half the game it was made out to be.

I literally stopped reading about games after that and it's been good ever since, hype really ruins a lot of games, i prefer to know nothing about the game untill i actually start playing it.

[edit]
As an exagerated example, the radiant AI in Oblivion was supposed to be epic but in reality....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ATh4y4XRjA

make sure you keep watching until the lizard lady breaks, i cacked myself for half an hour watching this MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI! FILTHY PICKPOCKET! MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI!

Of course some information beyond whatever blurb they put on the box is really needed to make an informed purchase. And I'm sure they'll break silence on Doom 4 eventually.

The problem a lot of people here, including Doom Dude I think, and myself have, is when too MUCH information is released. You end up knowing everything about the game before it's out... and then where's the sense of discovery?

Imagine the mind fuck you'd have gotten if no-one knew that you would get stroggified in Quake4, or if no-one had told anyone that there were actually aliens in Crysis.

Skyrim is fallign down this route already. The Hype machine started up way too early, and by the release date there will be far too much info floating around. The argument of course is to just ignore it. But for anyone who hangs out in various message boards and chat roms and stuff, it's virtually impossible to avoid stuff like that about big games, because loads of people are talking about it.

Which is exactly what they want. They want publicity, and they want to sell their game. So they tell everyone what awesome stuff is in it, and almost ruin it for some people.

AirRaid said:

Imagine the mind fuck you'd have gotten if no-one knew that you would get stroggified in Quake4, or if no-one had told anyone that there were actually aliens in Crysis.

Thanks for spoiling both of those things for me. (=_=)

Anyway, I used to be into reading all the pre-release press/hype revolving around the games that I look forward to, but as I've grown to have less and less spare time over the years, I can never find the chance anymore. In some cases this is good (I missed all the hype over Fable, and enjoyed it for what it was), but just as often bad (I thought TES:Oblivion would be much more like Daggerfall/Morrowind until I played it).

Information is a double-edged sword in situations like this. Still looking forward to some more info on Doom 4 though.

Mithran Denizen said:

Thanks for spoiling both of those things for me. (=_=)

There's a statute of limitations on spoilers. :p

Edit:
I have to say marketing a game is a double edge sword. Obviously you want to get people interested, but what pisses me off with the marketing behind modern games is that everything is revealed before release. There's no sense of mystery or discovery with games anymore, and it's a shame going into a game knowing exactly what's going to happen. It doesn't help that the culture around gaming has changed too. It's not shocking to see fan guides and FAQs for a game on day one or hear about someone beating the game within hours of launch.

ManCannon said:

As an exagerated example, the radiant AI in Oblivion was supposed to be epic but in reality....

Hehhehehe! That was amazing! Now that they mastered the techniques of Artificial Stupidity, they can finally start working on AI!


But back on topic, I am really looking forward to Doom4. It must be really hard to develop a game that pleases both the long time fans and the new generation of gamers as well. But I think we all agree: creating a big hype around a game is never a good thing.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this myself recently too. I come down on the side of less information please. Sure, I want to know a bit about the game (so that I can know that it is coming out and whether I am likely to want to play it). What I don't need is all the best bits shown to me before I buy the game or the plot spoiled.

I also think that some of the "problem" is due to how long game development takes these days. With games typically taking a number of years to develop, you can find yourself being given teasers and snippets of information for years. Some of these snippets change or become outdated or simply never make it to the game. Also, many of the snippets are actually dull bits of info that aren't really news or anything really. With that drip, drip, drip of (often dull) information I almost find myself fed up of the game by the time it comes out.

I'd like a pacey, exiting, informative (but not too informative), short-term ad campaign to get me stoked for the game. I don't need or want the kind of stuff we tend to get these days.

Well personally I know next to nothing about Rage, didn't know Doom 4 was in development and don't even have a clue what Skyrim is. You won't find information if you don't go looking!

Yeah, too much information about a game before its released usually makes me bored with the game before it even comes out. It seems like this happens way too often in modern games. I usually just ignore any info about any upcoming games because of this.

I found the hype behind action doom totally ruined it for me.

Ahh I started this thread somehow... :p

AirRaid said:

The problem a lot of people here, including Doom Dude I think, and myself have, is when too MUCH information is released. You end up knowing everything about the game before it's out... and then where's the sense of discovery?

Yep, I think that is the issue, that they reveal too much info. Obviously you want general info about what the game is going to be about and things like requirements. It's nice to see several screenshots and maybe one trailer but after that it becomes spoiler-fried.

AirRaid said:

Skyrim is fallign down this route already.

Indeed! I should be avoiding the Bethesda forums actually.

Also Guild Wars 2 has so much info out now that I think it's overkill. Sometimes it's hard to avoid taking one more peep at the info that's available.

Some of my best game experiences came from buying games I knew nothing about, like Strife, Quake, Blade of Darkness, Clive Barker's Undying and Arx Fatalis.

deathbringer said:

Well personally I know next to nothing about Rage, didn't know Doom 4 was in development and don't even have a clue what Skyrim is. You won't find information if you don't go looking!

AirRaid said:

The argument of course is to just ignore it. But for anyone who hangs out in various message boards and chat roms and stuff, it's virtually impossible to avoid stuff like that about big games, because loads of people are talking about it.

I havent gone looking for a single piece of Rage info, but I know a hell of a lot about it because it gets discussed in an IRC channel I frequent.

It is possible to avoid such things for a lot of people, but not all.

What's wrong with generating interest for their games?

samusaran253 said:

What's wrong with generating interest for their games?

Read above.

Doom Dude is generally correct. A need to keep interest through long development cycles and outshine the competition often ruins things. It bugs me a lot more than it used to.

What does make me happy is games like Oblivion tend to be large enough to hide some good surprises anyway.

I say that if a said game doesn't live up to people's expectations or disappoints, then the problem is with the game for whatever subjective reason(s) on behalf of the player. Not the requisite press exposure that's there to "keep the pot stirring", as a friend of mine once described it.

Besides, on the subject of Rage it was only quite recently that any substantial details about the game actually started appearing since id's demonstration of the editing software at QuakeCon '07 or whatever year it was. I can't imagine why people think too much info about it has been revealed.

Doom Dude said:

Some of my best game experiences came from buying games I knew nothing about...

Of course, part of the "problem" is that information is not released to give you (or anyone else) a good gaming experience, it's to get you to buy the game in the first place. Releasing information to get people to buy the game and providing a good gaming experience are two quite different goals and, unfortunately, they do not necessarily support each other. Guess which one (understandably) is more important to the distributors etc?

It has become quite apparent that, increasingly, a good gaming experience isn't even a particularly hi-priority goal of producing a game.

DoomUK said:

I say that if a said game doesn't live up to people's expectations or disappoints, then the problem is with the game for whatever subjective reason(s) on behalf of the player. Not the requisite press exposure that's there to "keep the pot stirring", as a friend of mine once described it.

I do think that, as I said, development length has an element to play in this. If you have been told how cool something is going to be for, say, four years, then you either expect it to be good or by the time the game comes out, it has started feeling old. Rage would be a good example of that for me. Although I haven't heard that much about Rage (and I'm not that interested in it) it feels like I've known about Rage for years (and, hey, I have) and that, somehow - sort of logically, sort of illogically - makes it feel almost like it is an old game already. Of course, technology-wise, with how long it takes to develop a game these days, newly released games are often quite obviously behind the curve of what people know computers can achieve at the time of the game's release anyway.

As long as games cost $50US a pop, the industry really can't support launching a game no one knows nothing about. It's not like a movie where you can watch it at a friend's house or randomly decide to spend a few bucks to go see it in a cinema.

Lower prices are a long term solution to many things, but many in the industry can't or won't make that leap. Which is a shame. There's a long way to go for the games industry to be mature.

GooberMan said:

As long as games cost $50US a pop, the industry really can't support launching a game no one knows nothing about. It's not like a movie where you can watch it at a friend's house or randomly decide to spend a few bucks to go see it in a cinema.

Lower prices are a long term solution to many things, but many in the industry can't or won't make that leap. Which is a shame. There's a long way to go for the games industry to be mature.

I agree but pirating has solved this for me, i rarely purchase a game without trying it first. I know that opens another line of discussion (that usually ends in flame and lecture), but i find i end up buying games i like, even if i get the pirated copy.

The times i don't pirate first i usually end up regretting it like with Homefront :(

Rage i am not that interested in so i will probably try it out first, but Doom4 is the sort of thing i pre-order. Companies really need to start making demos again but i think they worry it will drop sales because people will have a chance to see if their game is crap or not.

I was thinking about demos lately too. Main reason I ever try a demo is to check out if the game has crap controls or not or how the camera is set up and what is up with the inventory.

By the way there's a new Rage trailer. :p I went on Blue's News last night and spotted the info. I avoided it for now tho. Thing is, they already released a decent trailer not too long ago so IMHO they don't need to show more. heh.