Interesting, a blog theme based on something I posted about a day or 2 ago. So, I can expand and hopefully clarify something.
Firstly I have to define my terms. To me, hype is not popularity. To me hype is deliberate, corperate fueled. Type hype into google and you get this defintion "Excessive or intensive publicity; exaggerated claims made in advertising." As such, the 2 games I'm going to have a go at are Braid and the unreleased game Zombie Island.
Let's have a look at Braid first. Although not an issue with just Braid, but most so called 'high art' games like The Void, The Path and The ...Ico. I went through business studies in college as part of my IT course. I still don't see what selling chocolate has to do with PC repair, but it is probley one of the more often used things I learned there, and the very deliberate, corperate money making thing I'm about to say will likely piss off alot of people. That is, I have yet to meet anyone who is not already aware that didn't flip out upon hearing this.
You know the story of hardship the maker went through, how he poured a great deal of his own money into the project, how he got the idea in exotic tailand and whatever else was said. It's telling that the wikipedia page on the games delevopment is about a mile long. That is all marketing. It might be true, it might not, but either case, that established his "indie cred" by telling of the hardship he had to go through to make "true art". If you are the type who believes a games art galery should have Braid as the main exhibit, chances are you fell for the marketing hook, line, sinker and rod. You might not want to hear it, but high art anti corperate hippy types is just as much a marketable demographic as 18-30s or trendy fasion victims.
That's not excessive, remember the defined term? Rather people percieve moderate marketing as no marketing, as for real hype that gets to me, the unreleased game Dead Island is a perfect recent example of what I hate. Decpetion.
Dead Island went from a nothing blip in the games rader the bestest best game evar! All due to a FMV trailer that showed no gameplay. An outsourced bit of powerful publicity that showed images and themes that, when combined with the games feature list, sounded awesome. People got strangly hyped for it. I wasn't suckered in as much as most, but I was still disappointed when the devs slipped out that there were no kids in the game. So no having to make the tough choice to kill Tiny Tim. The awesome gore shown in the trailer? That's been cut back. So, a trailer that showed a guy cutting up zombies that it turns out you can't carve up in quite such an extreme way, and said man having to kill his daughter he just sacreficed himself to save is also not going to happen.
The worst part is these could have been cool. The gore would have been nice, but the moral dilema would have been great to see a horror game take on. Would you really do the smart thing like you shout at the TV and stick to your plan, or would your emotions get the better of you? We won't know because they either copped out, or more likely, the trailer was set up with the sole purpose to sucker people in. People try and defend the trailer, but any excuse they come up with just further shows that the trailer was deceptive in nature reguardless of who was at fault. That is bull$#!&$. What's worse is that they knew this was a good idea, so why not do it?
It should be noted that this kind of marketing is a one hit wonder. If you can combine great hype with a great game like Batman Arkham Asylum did, it can boost you into space, but if your game fails to live up to the extra hype, any more you make will be treated with doubt. As SF-Debris put it.
"If you break your legs in the olympics it will be you most popular moment, but only because you crippled yourself."