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[ArkkAngel007]

I love that there are people denying that manufactured hype exists, as if it's just something people made up becuase they aren't feeling the hype.

Not many people are claiming that it doesn't exist. Just that its use is getting twisted in discussions as of late (Evolve).

it doesnt seem to be that way. haven't we seen some threads recently asking were the tf community went. how difficult it is to find a match. that would never happen to a cod game

That was centered on PC I believe, which had a very small community from the onset due to a variety of issues. Matchmaking was also terrible before last month's Update 4 on XBO and PC, so getting a match started took up about half the time of a player's total time spent on the game, if not more.

And it wouldn't happen to a COD game due to there being, what, millions of players online at once of a player base of tens of millions? That COD is a long standing franchise? A million players could drop the game and it would be barely noticeable. 10,000 players drop Titanfall, and it's going to be an issue.

Titanfall was a new IP marketed specifically for a system that was underperforming in sales and goodwill at the time. The player base seems to be growing due to some of the moves Microsoft has made recently and updates from Respawn making the game far more functional in matchmaking.

 

[GorillaJu]

Those cardboard cut outs you see in the stores are literally Manufactured hype machines

I've heard some rude things said about GameStop employees before but this is new.

 

[border]

That indicates that inFamous Second Son sold better than Titanfall X1..

For April perhaps, but not cumulatively. Both games were well beyond the NPD Top 10. How has one undergone a sales "collapse" when the other has not? Both disappeared from sales charts and public consciousness quite quickly.

The last public data was had Infamous as 1 million worldwide, while Titanfall was 1 million in the states alone.

 

[Dragonborn]

You don't even attempt to hide your bias anymore, do you?

Wait, what? Posting facts to back up claims means I'm biased O_O

Welp, I don't know what to say to that.

For April perhaps, but not cumulatively. Both games were well beyond the NPD Top 10. How has one undergone a sales "collapse" when the other has not? Both disappeared from sales charts and public consciousness quite quickly.

The last public data was had Infamous as 1 million worldwide, while Titanfall was 1 million in the states alone.

But where in my post did I claim anything about cumulative ? I just said TF X1 sales collapsed in April, which is true.

 

[Forgottonone]

I've heard some rude things said about GameStop employees before but this is new.

that had nothing to do with employees You can't hate on Employees of big stores they're just people with a job they don't have anything to do with the policies of the store.

 

[hoos30]

This is really the final form of the console warz topic. Every gamer can supply his or her own definition of "manufactured hype" and the thread can go on and on forever.

 

[GorillaJu]

Not many people are claiming that it doesn't exist. Just that its use is getting twisted in discussions as of late (Evolve).

I dunno just on the first page I saw 4 or 5 people basically alluding to the idea that manufactured hype is term made up by people who don't like something that other people are excited for.

 

[PeregrinSe7en]

You don't even attempt to hide your bias anymore, do you?



and inside those topics you'll find several people saying how they haven't had any difficulty finding a match. I just picked it up recently and I've managed to do both campaigns and even select missions and find players, so it's not too hard to tell who's actually played the game ever/recently and those that somehow made a correlation between it being talked about on gaf and the number of people playing, which is really funny.

yes but that's not everyone

are we taking into account the pc version, cause that's were the community was apperantly dying out/dead

 

[GorillaJu]

that had nothing to do with employees You can't hate on Employees of big stores they're just people with a job they don't have anything to do with the policies of the store.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

fuck, is this the new

?

 

[Kade]

This is really the final form of the console warz topic. Every gamer can supply his or her own definition of "manufactured hype" and the thread can go on and on forever.

That's how you can tell it's a bullshit term.

 

[petethepanda]

Not sure I'd consider Watch Dogs manufactured hype when practically any ounce of news or footage on the game would spawn threads dozens of pages long. I don't even know how the term could really apply to just about anything as any game with a marketing campaign behind it would mean its hype was not fully "pure" or anything. I only really see it used when people are salty for whatever reason about a game from a big publisher like EA or Ubi,

 

[GorillaJu]

That's how you can tell it's a bullshit term.

It's not a bullshit term man, it's just easy to pull it out because people pick "sides" in games. When it comes to music it's more obvious.

 

[border]

I just said TF X1 sales collapsed in April, which is true.

You've used the phrase as a dramatic pejorative -- "The sales totally collapsed!" But by all accounts it's the basically the same sales contraction any game on a tiny userbase is going to see in month two. Infamous may have outsold it by some marginal amount, but TF did better in March and Infamous had only 1 week of sales under its belt at the start of April.

 

[Rembrandt]

yes but that's not everyone

are we taking into account the pc version, cause that's were the community was apperantly dying out/dead

Is that even surprising? iirc, doesn't CoD have somewhat low numbers compared to consoles, too?

That's how you can tell it's a bullshit term.

pretty much. it's one of those words people can use for whatever and it'll seemingly always be right. you're never going to see a negative preview. a publisher with money is never going to push their biggest title of the quarter, etc.

 

[Memorabilia]

Titanfall is a tough call. I think a lot of the early hype was genuine gamer excitement combined with genuine press hype (if there is such a thing). But, that hype was based on a very limited, early view of the game which for many people, myself included, was under the erronious impression the final product would end up offering a lot more content than it really did.

After the final game dropped I'd say the hype became mostly manufactured as gamers who were really playing it quickly realized that while the gameplay/gunplay itself is (mostly) sublime, there just isnt that much to do (and there are some seriously annoying balancing problems that progressively whittle away at wanting to keep playing).

Which is probably why sales and numbers of players dropped off a cliff. Fun but no legs.

So, in my mind, Titanfall hype was genuine early on but it was somewhat misleading.

 

[Dragonborn]

You've used the phrase as a dramatic pejorative -- "The sales totally collapsed!" But by all accounts it's the basically the same sales contraction any game on a tiny userbase is going to see in month two. Infamous may have outsold it by some marginal amount, but TF did better in March and Infamous had only 1 week of sales under its belt at the start of April.

But you're ignoring the context of my statement dude. Yes, sales drop off normally, but for the amount of hype TF (Savior of the Xbox, best game ever, revolutionary, etc) had, it collapsing that dramatically (so much so that it was outsold by inFamous in it's second month), that says something. That's my point.

 

[Kade]

Saw thread title, immediately knew 98% of the posts were going to be about Titanfall.

You guys sure love talking about this game.....

"Titanfall" probably rivals "the" and "and" for most used words on NeoGAF.

Respawn be like:

 

[ArkkAngel007]

yes but that's not everyone

are we taking into account the pc version, cause that's were the community was apperantly dying out/dead

Most of the claims in this discussion have been that the XBO version's community is a bust, thus the counterclaims from those who actually play the game.

It's no secret that the PC version is floundering at best. EA's Origin service and the XBO focused marketing were the initial issues for many I suspect, the first a barrier of hesitation while the latter a barrier of ignorance (not on the player). Then there was the fundamental game issues such as terrible matchmaking combined with the 50-90 seconds of pre-match countdown that would reset if you had to find new teammates or opponents to make up for people who dropped out due to the wait.

Combined all with the multitudes of technical issues and lack of PC-specific improvements/tools, it's no wonder why it would be a graveyard for many on that platform.

Again though, all the PC had as far as marketing is concerned was a spot on the EA Origin store page and the Beta. Everything is "Must Buy XBO so you can see Titanfall too!" 360 had even less with a Redbox placement and fine text with all the trademark and other boring information below the Gamestop banners.

 

[BPoole]

From what I seen with recent games its like this:

Real hype

• GTA V - I would argue that it is kind of manufactured with the way media hypes a GTA game but a lot of people want it anyway.
• Bloodborn
• No Mans Sky

Manufactured Hype

• Titanfall

Ubihype

• Watch_Dogs

Prototype Ubihype
Counter Strike: Better Explosives Edition Rainbow Six Siege currently under the "Watch Dogs effect" for some people eg. "I don't know after Watch Dogs I don't know if I can believe it." even after seeing gameplay.

The Division as well but we haven't seen enough of that to say anything, that still looks good.

I'd love to hear the difference between manufactured hype and "Ubihype" lol

 

[PeregrinSe7en]

iirc, doesn't CoD have somewhat low numbers compared to consoles, too?



.

that seems to be a logical conclusion. ms boasts about having x million people playing on xbox consoles, but they relatively dont say much about the pc counterparts

 

[nib95]

i still remember kinect launch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3V1qHg8bjM

Wow, they went all out! Kudos to their marketing team though. Must have cost a fortune.

 

[statham]

Titanfall is crazy fun. Hope some of the hate actually played it.

 

[D i Z]

I don't read IGN. Is it common for them to post those kinds of things 4 months after a game comes out? I would understand if they do it for something like Battlefield 4, because that game has an entire games worth of DLC.

My experience with the games press has always been that they drop whatever game they were interested in as soon as it comes out and immediately start hyping the next thing. Unless there is some significant post-launch content, like BF4 Premium or GTA Online.

In the case of TF, they most likely dropped it once they no longer had that bubble of industry only folk to play with exclusively. Listening to most of the gushing about the game from across a lot of media outlets often led to them talking about how horrible they were at the game, but it was ok because there were no real players around to make them feel inadequate. And praises for the game that gave them enough fluff and gimped targets to hit was pushed as if it were a feature that was praiseworthy. It was the exclusion of the public that I felt they often loved the most.
Once the game went public only the usual fps players stuck around, and the hype and gushing went right out the window.

I'm expecting to see the same thing to happen with Evolve as well.

 

[REV 09]

Hyped games that a large majority of gaf doesn't like or agree with. I actually don't think Titanfall or Watchdogs had "manufactured hype". Titanfall had a beta and a lot of people loved it...many people even loved it after playing it at trade shows. The final game just didn't have any legs or near enough content.

 

[RexNovis]

I guess it is just the feeling of disconnect between the level of hype that is portrayed in the media, and the level of hype observed in other actual players.

Yep this is my understanding. Well said.

I think Titanfall is pretty much as close as you could get for a textbook example of manufactured hype

Hmmm really? I haven't seen any of the game journos I follow tweet about Evolve, or seen very much coverage from the major outlets. If they are writing articles about it, I certainly haven't been notified of the articles via twitter.

Pretty much this, I don't get the same impression from Evolve coverage at all. The coverage for Evolve, while favorable, unlike Titanfall doesn't make me feel like a hype pill is being rammed down your throat with wads of cash. I cannot even begin to express how disgusting I found the marketing flood of advertising and forced excitement that accompanied the Titanfall launch.

Now that it has become clear the practice does not work (at the very least not to the extent that was hoped for) I hope it dies and never sees the light of day again. Good riddance.

 

[ElectricKaibutsu]

That's just how Ryan McCaffrey does it. His GTA V previews may as well have been written by Rockstar PR.

Hyperbole flies from his every key press and his preferences for Microsoft have always been laid bare.

Video game journalists want people to be excited for new games. People who are excited for new games keep coming back to read all the new features, previews, and rumors. Praising a game higher than it deserves leads to more clicks and more cash. It's how the system works. "Manufacturing hype" is real and gaming journalism probably couldn't exist without it.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Manufactured hype to me is as much about getting people to ignore as much of the competition as possible and about getting random fans to do your work for you as it is astroturfing or carpet bombing ad campaigns.

Twitter was a fucking nightmare if you followed game "journalists" the months before Titanfall released, everyone randomly babbling about how Titanfall would revolutionize the industry and how it would change the way shooters are played, with the biggest offender of them all being Hamza Aziz from Destructoid. I mean I know twitter accounts are meant for opinions, and maybe that could have been their opinion, but the way a lot of them were posted so randomly, without being related to any announcement nor event date made it seem kinda shady.

Oh for fuck sake, did this turn into another console wars thread? Or was that it from the very beginning? If so, nvm I'm out of here, I don't want to get infected with that nonsensical virus of yours.

It kind of had to given the subject matter.

 

[Leafhopper]

I'd love to hear the difference between manufactured hype and "Ubihype" lol

I just made that up on the spot but basically a game that people were initally hyped at some event where it was first shown (like E3 in Watch Dogs case), then it was marketed pretty heavily but, then as more and more stuff started coming out about it, people started to doubt it.
However, the game still sells. I dunno that's Ubihype to me.

 

[imtehman]

On NeoGAF it means hype for a game series you don't like or for a tentpole game releasing on a console you don't like.

PRETTY MUCH.

 

[synce]

Destiny hype to me feels pretty fake. I genuinely can't believe they spent half a billion dollars on something that looks so familiar

 

[D i Z]

Destiny hype to me feels pretty fake. I genuinely can't believe they spent half a billion dollars on something that looks so familiar

They didn't.

 

[badb0y]

Titanfall was really promising but for some reason I was really letdown by the time the game released.

This has been a cycle for me for a while now. Same thing happened to me with Guild Wars 2 and Wildstar where I really enjoy it in the beginning but the game just falls off my radar. Sad thing is I always end up buying collector's editions for these games meanwhile games like Witcher 2 and Smite smack me out of nowhere and I end up playing them for hours on end.

 

[Jarmel]

It's a bullshit term that means nothing considering people in this thread aren't even being accurate.

 

[789shadow]

Regular hype/marketing = "Look at how awesome our game is, you should buy it."

Manufactured hype/marketing = "Everyone is hyped for our game, you should buy it."

Basically manufactured hype, or at the very least in the case of Titanfall, is hype based mostly on hype.

 

[Jomjom]

Not many people are claiming that it doesn't exist. Just that its use is getting twisted in discussions as of late (Evolve).

Hmmm really? I haven't seen any of the game journos I follow tweet about Evolve, or seen very much coverage from the major outlets. If they are writing articles about it, I certainly haven't been notified of the articles via twitter.

 

[ArkkAngel007]

Destiny hype to me feels pretty fake. I genuinely can't believe they spent half a billion dollars on something that looks so familiar

Outside of maybe the initial 'rumors' of that debunked number, I've seen far more skepticism than hype on that information regarding Destiny. Hell, the hype for Destiny hasn't really been there with the press until recently, just as it took the PS4 Alpha to get more than Bungie loyalists to get fully behind it.

 

[Orayn]

People well try to tell you that out means interest in a game that seems artificial and prompted mostly by marketing.

In practice, it means people getting excited about a game you don't like, so you have to dismiss all that interest as fake to reassure yourself that only your tastes are reasonable and nobody could have preferences that differ from yours unless they were brainwashed or paid off.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I think I just started seeing it first or a lot more often with Titanfall and I saw some people throw the word around for Evolve some, too. Would No Man's Sky be considered manufactured hype? Is there a noticeable distinction between manufactured hype and just regular hype?

This is when your friends question what games you play after 20+ years of knowing what games you wanted to play. I'm aware of it, but I still consider it to be in good favor. Video game franchises need some form of manufactured hype or else they'd sit like rocks in a rock quarry.

Hey everyone, love rocks? I got rocks, tons of them. Some of them took millions of dollars just to let them sit for years and years.

 

[antitrop]

Regular hype/marketing = "Look at how awesome our game is, you should buy it."

Manufactured hype/marketing = "Everyone is hyped for our game, you should buy it."

I see absolutely no difference.

 

[nib95]

Destiny hype to me feels pretty fake. I genuinely can't believe they spent half a billion dollars on something that looks so familiar

There's isn't actually that much "manufactured" hype for the game yet, not from the media anyway. It's not winning every award left and right, or being heralded as a revolutionary game changer that will have people flocking to it and never returning, make their heads explode, provide sensory overloads etc. The bulk of the hype is actually just from gamers who really enjoyed the Alpha. Prior to that there was actually a tonne of negativity towards it, and a somewhat muted initial reaction from press.

This thread says it all really.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838460

Average interest level BEFORE alpha: 5.6 /10

Average interest level AFTER alpha: 8.1 /10

Percent of people whose interest in the game INCREASED: 79.6%

Percent of people whose interest in the game DECREASED: 13.9%

Percent of people whose interest in the game stayed the same: 6.5%

 

[cakely]

Saw this thread and I immediately thought "Titanfall".

A quick look through the thread and I'm obviously not alone. Keep in mind, this was a a day-one, full price purchase for me.

 

[Jomjom]

Hyped games that a large majority of gaf doesn't like or agree with. I actually don't think Titanfall or Watchdogs had "manufactured hype". Titanfall had a beta and a lot of people loved it...many people even loved it after playing it at trade shows. The final game just didn't have any legs or near enough content.

But after the full game was released and outlets had played it for what I presume to be hours and hours to do a complete review, there was still nothing negative about it's "legs" or the amount of content.

There's isn't actually that much "manufactured" hype for the game yet, not from the media anyway. It's not winning every award left and right, or being heralded as a revolutionary game changer that will have people flocking to it and never returning, make their heads explode, provide sensory overloads etc. The bulk of the hype is actually just from gamers who really enjoyed the Alpha. Prior to that there was actually a tonne of negativity towards it, and a somewhat muted initial reaction from press.

I've actually heard most press people talk about how it doesn't feel as good as Halo and being pretty cool on it because of all the MMO qualities. It's like the anti-hype.

 

[Hindl]

Titanfall is crazy fun. Hope some of the hate actually played it.

That's the thing though. In my opinion, Titanfall was a textbook case of manufactured hype. That doesn't mean that it isn't a genuinely great game, fun, or that players weren't excited for it. But the press previews and marketing went far beyond what is usually seen for games. They didn't hype this up as the next big shooter, or the first big game of the generation. Those would be fine marketing tactics, since it would play things up a little, but reflect the actual excitement players had for the game. Instead, this was hyped up as a game-changer, a game that would make CoD irrelevant and have the lasting impact of games like Halo and Doom. This was supposed to revolutionize the FPS genre. It's still by all accounts a fantastic game, but when the message being put out by the press is how things will never be the same, and the actual game fails to deliver, that's what I call manufactured hype

 

[789shadow]

I see absolutely no difference.

Titanfall had an absurd amount of hype from the gaming press at large almost the second it was revealed. This hype from the gaming press then became the basis for the game's marketing. One would generally expect hype to build for a game between announcement and release, not to spring up out of nowhere hailing a game as the second coming of Christ literally the second it's announced.

 

[Bessy67]

But after the full game was released and outlets had played it for what I presume to be hours and hours to do a complete review, there was still nothing negative about it's "legs" or the amount of content.

Because it had plenty of "legs" for a review period. I see a lot of people saying things like "it was fun for a while. I got to gen 2 or 3 and then just stopped". Well, it probably took them 50-80 hours to get there.

 

[RexNovis]

There's isn't actually that much "manufactured" hype for the game yet, not from the media anyway. It's not winning every award left and right, or being heralded as a revolutionary game changer that will have people flocking to it and never returning, make their heads explode, provide sensory overloads etc. The bulk of the hype is actually just from gamers who really enjoyed the Alpha. Prior to that there was actually a tonne of negativity towards it, and a somewhat muted initial reaction from press.

This thread says it all really.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838460

100% agreed. The majority of the hype for Destiny is coming from gamers who played the Alpha. That's a big difference from the massive advertising and journalist push we saw with Titanfall. Now that's not to say that we couldn't or won't see some absurd marketing blitz as we get closer to release but the Hype I've seen for Destiny seems to be coming from fellow gamers who were really blown away by the Alpha and not the marketing machine.

 

[Beboh13]

I'd say Titanfall for Xbox and Destiny for PS4. They will both end up being great games in the end, so why does it matter?

 

[Beelzebufo]

It's like those assemblies in elementary school where roller skating people told you not to do drugs, but with video game sales and big name journalism websites.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

Hyped games that a large majority of gaf doesn't like or agree with. I actually don't think Titanfall or Watchdogs had "manufactured hype". Titanfall had a beta and a lot of people loved it...many people even loved it after playing it at trade shows. The final game just didn't have any legs or near enough content.

I have to disagree here. The game was hyped up for the better part of a year as the greatest FPS since, like, forever. It was universally raved about in the press, marketing was everywhere, and folks spoke of it as if its existence alone would make the XBO a sales monster.

As it turns out, their was indeed something of a disconnect between the press's hype and what we actually got. It was a great concept for a game, but the actual game was rather average in terms of legs. A good first effort, but not worthy of the year long hype train.

Now, compare that to games that were more naturally hyped, like Minecraft. It went from obscure indie game to mainstream icon almost solely by viral hype.

Demon souls/Dark souls is another example. From was never an A list developer, but viral word of mouth made demons soul a major hit, and Dark souls a multimillion seller.

Katamari is another one. The first game was a budget release, that really no one paid attention to till release. But it's combo of unique visuals, gameplay, and music made it a cult hit, and spawned a pretty iconic franchise.