We've all been there; anxiously nashing their teeth in the wake of the upcoming release of the latest series of your favourite show, a new exciting movie or, to keep things on-brand, that new video game that's caught your eye and captured your imagination. In the right circumstances it can be a wondrous time where myth and legend swirl your mind as though anything can happen and you're expecting it all. Perhaps the mystery is what grabs you or perhaps you know exactly what to expect and just need it to be here now else you won't ever quite feel complete. Although it can also be a time of soared expectations and inevitable disappointments, wherein all that waiting and anticipation is doomed to result in a mediocre reception on release day, and you partially have yourself to blame for that. This, in a nutshell, is the dichotomous hype train. Toot Toot.
As one becomes ingrained in a community or a 'fandom' around a specific field of interest, it seems inevitable that you'll also catch the hype bug. In relation to gaming, if you're a fan of exploring worlds and playing new games then it's inevitable that you'll eventually hear an idea or concept for something upcoming that tickles the old taste buds. Typically, this might result in you thinking about that new title in your mind and trying to envision what secrets it might hold, where the developers might expand upon their previous works and how great it will feel to get your hands on. (Yes, I know I just defined 'Hype' to you. No, I will not apologise, I couldn't help myself.) This is good for developers and publishers, because it means that they've provided a suitable enough amount of marketing and presented it well enough to ingrain an idea into your head, and at it's most basic level that's the ultimate goal of all marketing. Hype is what allows for creatives to keep the excite for their games alive from the time of announcement to the time of launching without showcasing every little secret that game has to offer, it can make communities self perpetuating and fan-bases last decades but, as I hinted at, it can also have a negative impact too.
As Steven Spielberg was well aware of during the creation of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', and Chris Chibnall seemed pigheadedly unaware of during the crafting of Doctor Who season 12; the power of imagination is a story telling machine without peer. The whole expression 'less is more' is built around that truth and as such many writers and story tellers know that when it's possible it is much more effective to leave an open mystery than it is to close that gap, because nothing you can write will ever be better than what the reader can envision in their mind's eye. Unfortunately, imagination is the same fuel that 'the Hype Train' runs on, and that can lead to some substantial problems down the line. (Is the 'train' analogy getting old yet? I don't think it's old yet.) Hype forms around the mystery of the unknown, and when imagination is allowed to swell untempered, it can create an idealised expectation in someone's mind that will never be matched by the final product, leading to inevitable disappointment. For a gaming example of this just look to 'No Man's Sky' which was a title who's premise ran away with itself when the audience fell in love with it. (I mean, it didn't help that Sony were hoisting the title up as the next coming of Christ.) The Hype proved so infectious that even Hello Games caught it when crafting their trailers full of things that they hadn't yet been implemented, but the team just assumed that they'd get around to them, and their CEO Sean Murray, who went around to every single press event on the planet earth confirming features about the game that were still in the 'talks' stage. (Many of which were dropped.) And we all know what eventually happened with that game... it's kinda good now, but it took several years to get there.
Personally, I have experience with both sides of that Hype Train. (Although I'm so stingy that I rarely end up getting lumped with 'Buyer's remorse'.) Although this is likely not my actual first, the first time I remember being hopelessly caught up in hype-mania was all the way back in 2011 during the lead-up to Skyrim. Or to be accurate, in 2010 not too long after that year's E3. For reasons that would be too long to get into (Although I'd personally attribute it to the talented writing skills of Andy Farrant.) Skyrim was the first fantasy product that I really gelled with in a serious way. I read the preview about this game probably hundreds of times over and the second that I saw Bethesda's E3 presentation for that year I was wholly sold on the product. From that point onward I was literally marking down every single day until that game's release and absolutely could not function every day without it. (Which, considering that the game came out in November, likely means I knocked at least a decade off my life expectancy with all that anticipating.) On the day of the game's launch, which I had actually preordered for (Yes, that was my first Pre-order.) I ended up getting a detention in English which almost tore my soul from my body. I had waited this long, only to be held up over some missing homework? (Safe to say, I never looked that particular teacher in the eye ever again.) But when I finally got my hands on the game, at least I was satisfied. (Hell, I still play Skyrim, so the hype worked out for me I guess.)
However things don't always go that... Well? (Could that story be considered as 'going well'?) and sometimes all we are left is are products which we got our hopes up for only to have them be callously crushed by the hand of reality. For that there are so many examples off the top of my head; Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Di- what do you mean I'm focusing entirely on Ubisoft games? Oh right... And Fallout 76. Whilst I cannot say that I personally was sold on all of these games hook-line-and-sinker, I definitely know of certain groups of people who were and consequently were gutted when those games failed to deliver. I will say that I did have my hopes up for Wildlands, so that one honestly did get to me. (I even dared to hope for Fallout 76, fool that I am.) So with this possibility in mind the question that I'm left is simple; is the concept of 'hype' worth the fuss?
One of the things that I love about 'hype' is it's ability to unite people over the love of a shared medium and/or product. I don't go out much today, but back when I had to I found myself occasionally drawn into unexpected conversations with people that I would never typically rub shoulders with. I remember going back and forth about the possibilities of Hyrule Warriors and that exciting teaser for the game that would eventually come to be known as 'Breath of the Wild', and it was Hype which facilitated that sort of discourse. Additionally, Hype allows us to get excited about the realm of gaming even when there's nothing coming out, in fact, for the last 20-odd years gamers have only made it through Summer because of hype, with those months typically being devoid of all except that year's E3. And I think that as long as one remembers to stay realistic than there's no harm in making guesses about what a future game could hold, it's actually quite fun.
But by that same merit it is all too easy for hype to descend into something less healthy once it becomes an obsession. Games which are announced too early or which fall into a development nightmare are often infamous for relying purely on hype to keep things alive, which can be a huge detriment in the long run. Fans find themselves building up their idealised version of the game to the point where they become irrational and inconsolable. Just look at Disney's tenure with the Star Wars franchise. They piggybacked off of the original trilogy of films which, by that point, was nearly 40 years old. Logically, there was no way they could continue that story in any way that could be satisfactory so the quality of the next two titles were practically inevitable. (One could argue how that's no excuse for how bad they ultimately were, but that's neither here nor there.) Some games are still stuck on that hype train and have a army of fans following them that have practically been driven to the limits of their sanity because of it, just look at the Star Citizen community. Those people truly believe that Cloud Imperium is on the verge of delivering the next gaming revolution despite all evidence to the contrary, and at this point it feels like those folk are too far gone to consider otherwise. They invested so much themselves, whether that be emotionally or financially, that they can't fathom looking at the dumpster fire that they've jumped into else they'll realise that they wasted all of that investment.
So is the 'Hype Train' good for the gaming world? Yes and No. I'd argue that a little bit of hype is great for any upcoming project, and half of the fun of creating a cool name game is figuring out how to inspire the imagination of your audience with it, so no harm no foul. However, just like with all things in life, over exposure leads to dependence and that is a relationship that is ultimately beneficial to no one. As you can see, I find it hard to come down on one side of this issue and that just might be the point; how could you possibly do anything about the concept of people getting excited, even if it is ultimately wrong? Well, you could do a 'Lena Luthor' and strip everyone of emotions that you consider to be 'unhealthy' through Project Non Nocere, (Jesus Christ, I just made a 'Supergirl' reference. Please kill me.) or you could just except that hype happens and just search for a way to come to terms with that. Either way, I won't stop hyping up Resident Evil 3 next month and the Internet won't stop hyping up Cyberpunk this October, so we all better just suck it up.
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