Speaking recently to a group of friends, I intimated that I typically don’t get excited about games pre-release. My co-hosts on E2KG have too often heard me say “Developer, finish your game, and then I’ll take a look at your wares.” I am not too often inclined to be bothered with a beta, early release, developer preview, or any of the innumerous labels this recent age of digital publishing has yielded for “game that is not yet finished”. I imagine that it must be like a polar night in Alaska for a developer to endure the long period from trade-show announcement or press release through making a live demo of some sort available, possibly skirting through the aforementioned playable beta phases to actual release. An eternity during which their creative work is under the scrutiny of a microscope that measures it against the yardstick of “final product”. It may be that as a software engineer, I choose not to be anywhere near the hype-train out of compassion and empathy.
But the other reason is because that same slice of my psyche cannot be bothered. After several decades of gaming, I’ve come to perceive that the most gilded lily in pre-release can still arrive a mangled lump of clay. For the most part, I formulate my thoughts on a game after it has released, and after I’ve heard some initial word of mouth about it, and then make a decision to play it or not. I wish I had time to play all the games. But I don’t. I’ve spent my time as a game reviewer, and am still an early adopter when it comes to hardware. When it comes to games, I generally feel that, at $60 a pop, I do not need to be the first person in the pool. I still pump plenty of cash into the gaming industry on a yearly basis despite my snap-back tactical demeanor about releases.
Regardless, a game also has to be messaged well, and stick to that messaging. I don’t mind a small pivot on the approach to release. But big sways worry me about the company’s faith in the title, or that there was a misunderstanding by the marketing team about what the game was about. There also has to be synergy between the developers, the publishers, and in the case of a licensed property, with the owner of the IP.
Famously, a poster for the game told fans that “John Romero’s about to make you his bitch”. – Eurogamer
I never really understood the messaging around Avengers. As a comic-book fan, I don’t think I ever dreamed about being Captain America. He is already an established character with his own background and set of experiences. The fantasy was about becoming my own hero, leaning on my own actual real-life experiences and being in the Marvel Universe and working alongside those heroes.
Being an Avenger makes total sense to me in a limited, 40-hour-ish campaign with a relatively definitive beginning, middle, and end (DLC and expansion packs notwithstanding). But the notion of being an Avenger inside a game-as-a-service? I never saw the thru-line in that. I’d rather be my own Guardian, or Tenno, or ship or spaceship captain, writing my own history against a blank, or minimally filled in, canvas. Not overlaying it on top of 80+ years of already written comic book history.In similar vein, I’m not entirely sure what the messaging around Marvel’s Midnight Suns is supposed to be. Admittedly, I never read the original comic. But I’m familiar with a bit of its history. Then game features a cast that is not in-line with the comic. And while I am not a fanatical “stick to the book” kind of gamer, it feels like a missed opportunity to not take the opportunity to bring Daimon Hellstrom and Morbius into the light of day. While I applaud the addition of Magik, given her integration into the X-Men storyline, I do not understand the addition of MCU heavy-hitters Captain’s America and Marvel, Iron Man, and alt-MCU flag-bearer Wolverine. These seem gratuitous fan platitudes that maneuver the title into the corner where I look at it as just a skinning of X-Com. This was much the same effect that Galactic Battlegrounds, a game developed by LucasArts (may the studio rest in peace), built on the Age of Empires / Age of Empires 2 “Genie” engine licensed from Ensemble Studios (may that studio also rest in peace) had for me back in the day; I was never convinced it was much more than an AoE2 palette-swap. It feels like there is marketing around this Midnight Suns and concerns of profitability that have crept their way into the game design and are smothering the messaging like Wuthrich butter.
Yes, there are a few proclivities I have that keep me outside the ring observing the chaos inside when a game is in its pre-release. And generally I wait until something lands and I have some time to see what others are saying about the game. Still, I have to decide amongst a myriad of games that are out at any one time what I may want to buy. And when a game with clear messaging is up against one that has buried the lede, I am more apt to choose the one whose messaging has been clear, and whose design I think appears to be in-sync with that messaging. The past is riddled with the corpses of games that were messaged differently than they played, or whose messages showed a clear invasion across the creative boundary by the marketing team and IP owners. My hopes that things turn out better for Midnight Suns. I’ll be waiting at the back of the club to see if anyone else hits this particular dance floor and comes away raving about the DJ.
Rounding Off Infinity 