First, when I say ‘lazy’, I mean doing a half- assed job, cutting corners, basically everything you did just to pass that stupid general education class in college.
Now let me give you a scenario that I am sure you have seen quite a few times in your gaming life. If you haven’t and are one of the chosen few, consider yourself lucky but your time will come. Am I speaking of some terrible plague in the gaming world?
Why yes I am! You win!
I am sure others have different names for it but I am going to call it the ‘E3 Hype Curve’. This curve has to do with the hype of whatever game or system that is being presented at E3. People who attend E3 are more susceptible to it versus people who hear about it via the Internet due to the filter they can have from hearing it from someone else.
It starts like this…
The wonderful companies that show up at E3, let’s say Sony, will release a statement about what they will have for the next year. This is the start of the curve as people’s hype for the event rises. People at the event will of course love what they see. All of the per-rendered cut-scenes and “actual gameplay” will be the best thing they have seen ever. (Until next year…)
Now we are nearing the top of the curve as all of the news outlets and Facebook posts about E3 will spread like a venereal disease across the wonderful truth-filled realm of the Internet. Now, ladies and gentlecolts, we begin the decline. The thing about the hype train, that I hope you figure out soon, is the the train has to stop and you have to get what you want. The deciding factor of whether or not you like what you get is at this destination.
“Mr. Gamer, what are you talking about? Of course, they can’t show us a finished game. If it was finished, it would be selling at my Gamespot that I love and signed my soul to! The cut-scenes are always cool.”
And that is the problem. The selling point of a game, in my opinion, should be gameplay. For example, I kicked a grand total of zero kids out of windows in Dead Island.
Were there kids to kick? No.
Was the cut-scene gorgeous? Hell yeah.
Did I buy the game? Of course. I plan to get the GOTY Edition as well.
Please keep in mind the point I am trying to make here, though. Was the game worth it? No. Hence why I am getting the GOTY Edition so much later. This is the bottom of the curve, when people complain about what they didn’t get that they thought they were promised after all of the E3 news. It is an inevitable thing that we let the game companies get away with.
They just have to release some pretty cut-scene to hook us like Sunday’s catch and we won’t figure out that the game is shit until we play it. This is the laziness; not holding up to the quality of what they show us versus what we buy and, to be honest, we let them. We let them make several copies of the same game (i.e. Every COD game) by simply purchasing it. The companies go off the figure of the sales and the game was a success to them, though it sucked to everyone else.
Is there a simple solution? Yes and No. That is for another day but remember: We Have The Power.