This is no treatise against people being given the information necessary to make informed purchases. In some cases, the game might even be available on Early Access – just so you can well and truly exhaust your interest in it before development is even completed. If that’s not enough to get a crystal clear picture of what you’re buying, there’s no doubt a full playthrough just a few clicks away on YouTube. When was the last time you bought a game you knew absolutely nothing about? Steam makes it almost impossible, emblazoning each game page with a Metacritic rating and all manner of trailers and media pull-quotes. The idea of a pleasant surprise in gaming is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, then. Flashy teasers, trailers and early previews build to a fever pitch that peaks before a game has launched, giving it the unenviable task at release of matching up to a version of itself that exists only inside players’ heads.Įxcellence is therefore greeted with little more than an approving nod any whiff of it having under-delivered hits harder, provokes a stronger reaction, and sticks in the mind longer. It’s an oft-observed byproduct of the modern hype cycle that games suffer at the hands of the expectations they generate.
