Does hype do more harm than good for games

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

I tend to be a little long winded, but I’ll try to be concise. The other day in my scenes local facebook page, some members were talking about the dwindling AE scene in my local community. One member said that AE doesn’t really bring the hype, and as such has pretty much died down. I made an argument against hype there which doesn’t seem to be a shared opinion amongst many. What is hype? And does hype actually destroy games than it actually builds games?

My personal opinion is that hype is what is attractive to the eyes. This is why Marvel has always been a great spectator game (and anime games as well)… There is always something going on even when there is nothing going on. Combos are a lot longer, you’re likely to see stuff you’ve never seen lebefore, and generally things move in a faster pace. As a result these games are usually more hype, but does this really mean what’s happening on screen is actually solid? A lot of the times, especially the case in Marvel there isn’t. While I dropped Marvel 3 long ago, i’m not here to bash the game. However there are tons of things that happen in that game that are sheer luck, or due to someone just pressing buttons. While this can make a stream explode, is this really what we should judge a game by?

So this begs the question, are games really being destroyed due to their lack of hype? I think they are, as is the most recent example SFXT. Evaluating this game, there isn’t much wrong with it besides balance issues. Sure some glitches have been introduced, but this game was DOA long before the introduction of infinites or glitches. This game was NEVER a hype spectator gameti. With all of the timeouts, the overall slower gameplay, etc, stream monsters abandoned this game in fleets. Stream view counts go down almost half when this game is on stream. This just mean the game may be boring to look at, but is taht really a crime? No, but this makes the game unhype, and its what the game is judged on. This is a big effect down the road for the games lifespan, since games exposure really rely on streams. And new members getting into a game really get introduced to high level play on stream now days. As a result, this game was killed mostly because of streams.

We can find other examples like Tekken 6, which is often ran on a seperate stream than the “main” stream. Tekken is often considered a boring spectator game. And while this game has a very established competitive base, one can’t help to wonder if viewer counts would help this game a lot. While Tekken 6 is an aging game, plenty of new comers don’t play it, and find it hard to understand. I can imagine TTT2 will be similarly panned by stream monsters, and if that is the case, it may not enjoy a vibrant compettitive community outside of a few diehards.

Personally I think were in a bad spot when hype and not solid gameplay isn’t used to judge a game. I can’t imagine what would happen if games like CVS2 or Alpha 2 existed in this day and time. I mean tons of legendary matches didn’t have the craziest combos, or involved little to no activiity. Shou vs Kurita in VF4EVo in Evo 2004 was a classic match. While it wasn’t slow, you didn’t see a combo every 5 seconds either. How about Rick Ortiz vs. Kindevu in Evo 2004? Choi vs Valle at B3, Watson vs. Choi in Anniversary Edition in Evo 2007, Daigo vs. Wong in Evo 2009? Almost all of these matches were well played and approached methodically. Where spacing games were more important than hitting a combo. But the average monster these days would call such matches boring, not really understanding the intensity of the footsies war, the zoning, the mind games, and the clever ingenuity. For this reason I believe hype has really killed gaming, and I don’t see it as much of a good thing. Especially when it seems to effecting numbers and entrants in tournaments.

2

People still get hype for AE when the best of the best are playing. It’s dying down because it’s been out for 4 years.

Haven’t been keeping tabs on SFxT but from a quick look it just seems to be a mess.

From everything with the glitches and how slow it is.

I didn’t play any of the older games hardcore but I remember them being alot more fast paced than SF4 and SFxT

3

Hype is good.

Hate is bad.

4

Hype is great. There’s nothing bad about pure hype.

Go watch SF4 @ evo 2009.

EDIT: got the year wrong

5

its great until people start doing stupid shit to try to manufacture hype (fake rivalries for instance)

People being excited and enthusiastic is always good ><

6

The only Street Fighter games that are hype imo are ST and 3s. But I understand where youre coming from its just like all the Divekick nonsense that I find irrationally stupid but it’s “hype” and fun so people love it.

Dive kick is def a game we could play while were under the influence of substances but is it really worth anything?

I agree with OP in saying some hype does kill games that require harder attributes to gain like patience and yomi

7

with the exception of the comebacks that overcome those mechanics. “I survived them Xfactoring and killed the bitch anyways!” is often very exciting

@Broryuken: Ya divekick is kind of good ‘fake hype’, its a huge series of in-jokes, not actual excitement.

8

I think the community is hype as ever. The games just aint hype material, like they were a few years ago. I think the only reason why everything was so crazy was cuz developers were making legitimately-new additions to games people hadn’t seen in a long time. SFIV, BB (was like the next GG), KOFXIII (what KOFXII was supposed to be), MVC3, and MK9. It’s been a few years since these games have been out.

Doesn’t help that Capcom and Arksys don’t know how to space out the fucking upgrades and patches, either.

9

but that shit is not hype :stuck_out_tongue:

1st is arcsys
2nd, ideally, specially for arcade releases, is good to release a new revision after a year, this is specially true for companies like arcsys that get the most part of their revenue from the arcade games that they sell

10

I do believe Hype do more harm to games only because like it was stated it’s attractive to the eyes because of trailers, forums, gaming producers saying what’s best about the game. Not only that but when people buy the game and can’t play it and start losing it then becomes a waste of money and time that’s why demos are so important for people to test drive it and take it from there.

11

Actually yes, hype does do more harm than good because some people only look up for the hype instead of making up their own mind about a game, kind of like a word-to-mouth thing. SFxT was pretty hyped even when everyone should’ve known from day 1 that game is trash.

So next time a game is announced or coming up, look it up yourself and use your own judgement instead of listening to that one guy going ohmygodthisthingisthebestthingeveeeeerrrrrr.

12

Oh shit dude, my bad. 2010 was Daigo Riki. I totally meant Justin vs Daigo. 2009

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I think we like to pretend that games like sfxt has died due to an intelligent evaluation of the game mechanics. But let’s be honest, the game died do to it not being a hyped stream game. This lead to the decision for the game to be 2v2 at Evo. I also don’t think SCV got many viewers when it was at the break either.

I mean I think were dealing with a situation where hype can ruin a game. I mean games like TTT1 lived for years and was a gale with tons of timeouts even until the games final years. It would.never make it today having to be a alid game and then be a good spectator game. Streak.monsters would pan that game like its.no ones.business. Samurai Showdown also could.neber survive these days due to streams, as most matches are very long, and combos are actually rare.

While sfxt happened to habe a lot of problems, if it were solid but just boring to watch, it would still die. That the point, hype isn’t based on what.makes a game solid. I just hope VF5FS has what it take to surive as a stream game, but it doesn’t look like it.

14

Nothing wrong with hype no. But i do agree people just judge games based on their ‘hype factor’(i’ll never use this term again i promise) rather than the play itself. Like if JWong was down to a sliver and he got a dive kick into BnB into ultra for the kill, that is all people would see, yet they don’t notice the sick throw read to punish with the dive kick in the first place. Sometimes i just feel like im getting excited at different times to everybody else and wondering if it’s me.

I wonder if ST could be considered a ‘hype game’ to the stream masses now-a-days

15

ST would depend on the matchup. Similar to how AE works. While I think a good Guile vs Ryu AE match is very enjoyable, tons of stream monsters call boring. This same matchup in ST would be boring as well. Including matches with O Sagat. Just loon at old YouTube videos and YouTube commentors (the spiritual forefathers to stream monsters). They will generally hate a fireball war. Look at really old comments from Muteki vs Daigo for SBO. Many complained about spam. ST would he half and half. CVS2 would definitely never survive in the streaming world.

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16

  1. Well excuse the fuck outta me.

  2. I don’t see why that is, but even if that’s true, you gotta know that what business practices work in arcades in Japan, might not work on consoles, world wide. I’m not saying that the practice is a bad thing (if they gotta do it, they gotta do it), just saying it’s killing hype over here.

17

Hype isn’t something that should be treated like rocket science anyways. If people are legitimately excited, that’s always good… If people aren’t, there’s something wrong somewhere.

Pretty much all there is to it.

18

Hype is never bad.

If people are legitimately excited for and legitimately enjoy a game, then that’s a good thing for that game and its community.

There are no guidelines that say that people are wrong for being hype about a game.

If you don’t like it, play something that you do get hype for.

19

Games don’t die because of stream numbers. They die because no one enters the actual tournament. I remember one time at Big 2 where SFxT didn’t even get ANY entrants.

Plus you also have to think about the fact that its only been TWO months since that game was released. It’s a little early to declare it dead.

20

We can pretend that stream numbers don’t effect tournament entrants, but they do. A stream monster is more likely to engage his local scene for a game that got him hyped. They are also more likely to want to play the game more because of the hype on stream. It does, in the long run effect tournament entrants.

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