Game Reveals kind of suck now ..

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨64bithero@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

Every year I try to get my self excited about watching the gaming summer shows , what use to be E3. This year honestly I just couldn’t. I tried watching a few minutes of both the Sony and Summer Games fest and felt bored. I’m sure a lot of these games these they show will be great. But the way the present most of them honestly doesn’t engage me in the slightest.

Sometimes you get a cinematic trailer that shows no gameplay sometimes (mostimes) you get just gameplay with no context.

I feel like the presentation format doesn’t work for games not anymore anyway. I feel like just setting up a YouTube channel or a playlist with game logos , descriptions and back stories with a small trailer would work so much better.

Unlike E3 this SGF is a Geoff cash grab where most larger companies seldom take part. Outside of new hardware I don’t see the need for this no context trailer barrage.

Maybe I’m just out of touch maybe I’m just insane. Thoughts ?

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Comments

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big_slap@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
best game reveal was apex legends imo. knew nothing about the game, they showcased it for awhile and then it was available after the showcase ended.

still chasing that reveal high, I wish more games did that tbh

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OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
My pet hate was always trailers not showing gameplay

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- psx_crab@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  story reveal
  
  Nah
  
  cinematic trailer
  
  Nope
  
  not ingame footage
  
  No thanks.
  
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  - OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Its like a trailer for a movie but its just someone on screen describing what it looks like
    
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REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
30 Seconds of ambient sounds while some guy speaks the most generic words

5 seconds of some random gameplay footage that’s not telling me much

The crowd goes wild(?)

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- PushButton@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Only to see that game release pushed back 5 times before being cancelled.
  
  Call me when the game’s ready, until then, good luck with the development!
  
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ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Do you remember what E3 presentations used to be? Go back to 2006 and watch one straight through. Or even 2016. Lots of slides about how great the presenter’s company was, live demos that didn’t work; for about 2 hours that felt like 4, with far fewer games shown in the same amount of time as today. That’s not to say this is objectively better, or that it’s always good, but it’s how we arrived here. Compared to 20 years ago, I also have so many different ways to cut advertisements out of my life entirely that this and the Game Awards are basically the only time I seek them out. And it’s not just Geoff’s show; take a look at the Steam “showcase of showcases” page, and you’ll see all of the other little events tied around this time of year, too, often with demos available for us to play.

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- 64bithero@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I do remember and I’m also definitely not going to say those were better days. I just think given what we can do now I believe most of the current formats could do with some change. I like Steam NextFest I think some alterations there even for just more trailers could be a truly special experience.
  
  Just can’t over do it with crap like NextFest can do at times …
  
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- early_riser@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  9 Oh the 2006 Sony E3 presentation! So many great memes came out of that one. Giant Enemy Crab!
  
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scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I just can’t stand marketers, and that’s all these shows are now. I hate the artificial dialogue in the trailers, the fake views of the games, everything is “curated”, and it feels so fake. Then also what’s the point of getting hyped because a heavy double digit percentage will be minimum delayed, or even full-out cancelled (because hype is a metric now). I wait for game dev streams, at least sometimes you’ll get a real dev who isn’t “PR trained” talking about their game, and then you can get a realistic idea of how complete it actually is.

Satisfactory did it best in my opinion. True early access, they had minimum monthly videos showing the progress, they had a regular EA release cadence every 6 months, they actually engaged on Discord/Reddit/etc (You could literally @ them on the platforms and they’d respond, not just “join our discord” with a bunch of unanswered question with no actual company presence). Then when 1.0 actually released it was (I believe) CoffeeStains biggest and most anticipated release. It felt real, authentic, actual people making a game. Not a marketing team shilling.

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popcar2@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Compared to what though? Game reveals have always been big CGI trailer and maybe some tease of gameplay. If anything this year was way better than the last few because they showed back-to-back trailers and not have someone talk on stage for 5 minutes after each one.

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- chuckleslord@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  RTGame on YouTube is doing 20th anniversary showings of E3, and they were always boring stockholder meetings.
  
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  - Aielman15@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Boring? I rewatch the legendary Sony 2006 E3 at least once a month!
    
    Riiiiiiidge Racer! :D
    
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  - popcar2@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    We did get hilarious E3 compilations at least!
    
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- 64bithero@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I never said e3 was better. Given the options available now how they handle things now I’d argue could be done much better.
  
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jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Back in the day, you were lucky to get box art and screenshots! 😉

But, yeah, I get it. So much of it is just plainly manufactured bullshit. You can’t trust anything. Not at least since the Halo 2 debacle.

And even if it is real, there’s no guarantee it won’t change before release (cough - Watch Dogs - cough), get delayed forever, or just get outright cancelled and shelved.

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- 64bithero@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Back in those days you had limits on physical pages / dial up on the web.
  
  So you’d only see the biggest / most fleshed out (most of the time )
  
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  - Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    A little later but before broadband was ubiquitous to the internet there were cable shows that covered games and E3 like XPlay on TechTV.
    
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pory@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
No point in watching the ad parade when 80% of the games are hat stores or GAAS slop and 90% of the remainder are remakes and remasters. The games worth your time and money are ones you’ll hear about when they’re released.

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- Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I hate live service games and microtransactions as much as the next guy, but your assessment really doesn’t feel like it matches what I saw come out of the trailers and reveals. Or hell, even the releases so far this year. Which of the big games released this year were hat stores and/or GAAS slop? There are plenty of faults in current gaming but the live service trend does seem to be abating.
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yeah, the bright side of the past couple months is that companies have seemingly finally realized that live service is a losing bet.
    
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iamthetot@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Can’t disagree more. Never been a better time to be a gamer. We’re so spoiled for choice and every genre has so many games, there’s bound to be something for everyone.

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- velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Seriously! I’ve never been happier as a gamer who dislikes first person shooters. There’s so many options and variety now!
  
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  - I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    God, do you remember the hell that was mid-2010’s gaming? 90% of all releases were fps’s with every color just being a different shade of brown.
    
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Auster@thebrainbin.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Might I suggest game shows for indie games? Usually those don't have the budget to hide contents behind cinematic games, and usually they seem of a better quality than AAA games.

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Summzashi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I really miss the E3 days but it’s not hard to see why we’ve arrived here.

Also back in the day many if not most presentations were garbage. Half the fun was making fun of them with friends.

For us it’s still an excuse to get everyone together and sometimes it even feels like the old days. Sometimes.

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sophie_talks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I think part of the issue is that there are simply so many games competing for attention now. Even good trailers can blend together after a while.

What usually gets me interested isn’t the trailer itself…it’s when I can quickly understand the game’s core idea and what makes it different from everything else being shown.

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thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I recently showed a 60-something year old relative the two GTA6 trailers, while explaining my looking forward to trailer 3 and the game’s launch.

They remembered me playing Vice City back in the early 00s, so we watched its first two trailers also and let me tell you - for all of modern gaming’s faults - marketing has gotten a lot better in the intervening years.

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- p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  marketing has gotten a lot better in the intervening years.
  
  You mean like this?
  
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exu@feditown.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The Devolver “E3” presentation was always great. I think they stopped making them though.

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- Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Devolver went public, had some less than amazing releases and tanked extra hard.
  
  They fell victim to the same things they’d always poked fun at.
  
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psx_crab@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
You and me same, but i think for me i’m just jaded by the abundance amount of game and dev that i can’t really keep up who is what anymore. Nothing is fresh if you ate too much of it over the year, and once your mind tell you “ehh, why bother” you will move on from these hype train. I used to sit through all these livestreamed event but nowadays i just scroll through them and watch what piqued my interest, or play the demo on steam.

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TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Me: People still watch game reveals from big events?

For over twenty years, I stopped paying attention to big gaming announcements from big events like E3. I just learned the hard truth that it’s all marketing jazz and when the game is finally released, it is nothing like what was hyped up to be. I don’t even remember what was the game that disappointed me so hard to make me give up looking up game reveals.

I just let the finished product and reviews speak for themselves to influence me on whether or not I will play the game.

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Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
They always did

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terabyterex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
i felt like xbox’s showcase did a gretavjob of showing storybdriven gameplay

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early_riser@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’m not sure where you are in life, but I think at least some of the “games suck now” (or in this case “trailers suck now”) vibe comes from our lives changing as we get older, and not just the games themselves.

When I play Ocarina of Time, it takes me back to that time in my life when I first played it, when I was in middle school and the heaviest thing on my mind was what I was going to eat for breakfast the next morning. Except for maybe Tunic[^1] modern games, even good ones, don’t evoke those emotions, and as a much older person dealing with the struggles of adulthood I can’t imagine coming back to these newer games in ten years to relive my current situation. For example, Minecraft was released after I was done with college. I was part of the early older player base that existed in Alpha and Beta, I don’t have the nostalgia for the game that a lot of zoomers probably do.

As for game announcements and the hype train, for me at least that’s also a victim of aging. When I was a kid games were a scarce luxury in the sense that I couldn’t just thoughtlessly click a button and play the game aftera ten minute download. I had to save up my allowance and and ask my parents to take me to Funco Land or Toys Я Us, and that’s assuming my mom didn’t decide I had enough games already.

I vividly remember hearing that Nintendo was releasing a Mario fighting game (which turned out to be Smash Bros). I looked forward to the release because there was a real chance I wouldn’t be able to get the game because I didn’t have the money or my parents said no, so that made it feel like something special and helped feed the hype train.

I do think games are measurably worse in some ways now though. You don’t own your games anymore, AAA budgets are skyrocketing while quality is cratering. They’re riddled with microtransactions, and purely single player experiences are rare in the AAA space. A lot of that can be mitigated by focusing on indie games though.

[^1]: I know I talk about this game a lot, but it really is the only game I’ve first played as an adult that evoked something in me other than mild amusement, and honestly it’s because I went in mostly blind and was expecting a completely different game. If I had known what the game’s deal was from the start it probably would have been just another decent game that I put down and rarely if ever play again.

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