Burn your expectations

 Kill them, if you have to

Expectations are a natural part of life. From the moment we're throw into that sick pool of consciousness abroad this hellish floating space rock, we're affixed with expectations and hopes that will systematically be stomped out of us and wringed dry as life proceeds to mock and disappoint us to greater and greater degrees until it ends with tragedy. (Hmm? I'm bringing down the mood, am I?) Whilst everyone has their own way of approaching the world around us, it's an unshakable fact that expectation will play some major role in practically every part of our lives. Whether you hope for the best and flitter on the sleeve of your heart, or assume the worst so that you'll never quite be disappointed. It's part of the human condition to anticipate what hides behind the next sunrise and prepare for that eventuality. As such, it's only fair from a marketing sense to exploit those expectations.

For that's what marketing really is at the end of the day; expectation manipulation. An effective advert will worm it's way not just into your mind but also your perception, either changing your inbuilt priorities to convince your mind that you need this advertised product, or arranging your own sense of happiness to manufacture some internal gaping maw that can only possible be filled by an X-product. One of the most famous exercises in marketing, "sell me this pen", hides it's secrets not in conjuring up some false cornucopia of magical application that said-pen is apparently capable of, but by ascertaining the intended client's supposed needs and warping those to a preferred reality within which a purchase of your pen is merely a formality. "How long have you been on the market for a new pen"- is the typically accepted first question in such an exchange.

When we approach the ideas of games and expectations, we play out this same dance once more with the face of the interactive medium. Hopes and perceptions piled onto of one another and balanced in a game of 'Jenga' where the higher you stack the more you win- which I guess is only really circumstantially like Jenga now I think about it. Pile them too high, however, and the consequence can be brutal; a total crash of marketing or overabundance, or maybe you'll just start telling fibs. We've seen from Cyberpunk to No Man's Sky to Fable how a great vision can be tainted by a skewered marketing cycle, and even great final products may still be hampered by the marketing scars still just too present. I still can't bring myself to actually go out and play Cyberpunk because I remember all of that fervour and chaos we were led into. Also, I am absolutely lacking the free time what with everything else going on in my life right now.

Yet what of the titles to which we hold no expectations but which pleasantly surprise us nonetheless? Despite coming to it more than a year after the fact, I had totally ignored all content on Death Stranding and was determined to treat it as neutrally as I could, ascertaining what I would and coming away with only a solid understanding of the game. I ended up totally loving Death Stranding for all of it's weird idiosyncrasies, without trying to match it up either to other games of the age or even previous Kojima works. (Which is nice, because Death Stranding's gunplay and stealth action is total pits next to 'The Phantom Pain') I also remember approaching Hollow Knight with a similar sense of "I have no idea what to expect but I'm going to take it as it comes." And being knocked for six with how brilliant that title was. Expectation is not, therefore, a necessary ingredient in a great game.

But what about a successful one? Because how often does the great simply balloon to the top of the pile purely by the merits of it's own quality? I mean it's happened, sure, but sparingly... more and more so with the proliferation of new titles and the accessibility of development tools. Doki Doki Literature Club pretty much blew up from reputation alone, before being carried on the backs of streamers to immortal super stardom. There was also that incredible Dragon Ball Z fan animation from last year which glittered with creative ingenuity. And that's... man I know there's other examples! I'm sure there are! But when it comes down to it, the gift of the gab and mastery over the intangible world of marketing really lacks a substitute.

The very idea of an 'expectation' can be a writhing snake cutting off the lifeblood of surprise as it is, simply by the way it taints that virginal experience when embarking on a game. Jump up to the first boss of Elden Ring (Yes, I know I invoke the name of Miyazaki too much, I can't help myself!) expecting the speed and deflection mastery of Sekiro to infrom the playstyle of that newer game and- well, you're going to be disappointed; aren't you? That's no fault of the game in question, but the baggage you've brought to the experience. I skimmed over the screenshots of 'Tower of Time' and bought it very much expecting an isometric CRPG and getting a puzzle RPG game. My bad for not paying more attention, but it also ruined by attempts to genuinely give the game the chance it deserved because, at the end of the day, it just wasn't what I expected.

So how exactly can we be rid of our expectations, if we want to revert to our apparent innocence of baby youth? Well, unfortunately that is patently impossible as living human beings because that is simply the lot the human condition. But perhaps the fairest possible way to approach a new game is with a light 'cleansing' of expectation. Similar to how you are taught for yoga to dispel all thoughts and focus in the moment, an exercise which does honestly nothing for me even if I can respect the intent within it. At it's heart a product of entertainment should be judged purely for the product that it is, and all the evils and woes swirling around it are mere inconsequential set-dressing laying outside of the magic box of the world of escapism. Consider the whirring engine of your console switching on to be synonymous with the blasting pistons of a full-speed Isekai truck roaring towards your face, and the experience thereafter a world all of it's own. Divorce yourself from the world around yourself.

However, we can't really do that; now can we? To this day my Father finds it deeply confusing how it is I can be such a rabid fan of the work of H.P. Lovecraft despite the fact that the man was a deeply pseudo-scientific racist who would probably have seen someone of my complexion and immediate heritage as a degenerative abomination of phenology. Some can switch off like that, others just can't. And I won't pretend I still don't turn up my nose and sniff huffily everytime a well-known game agency commits the sin of reviewing a modern sports game with a largely favourable score, further propagating the poisoning of our industry. Objectivity is an ideal, and a goal to strive for, but just as world peace and a satisfied mind are ephemeral phantoms forever dancing out our grip, we can only strive to be the viewers that we want to be, and to give everything and one the chance deserved.