Shadow Drops- Mostly Exciting but a Little Disastrous

[Jamesac68]

Shadow drops are awesome- Surprise! Here's this really cool thing and you can get it now! Personally I enjoy when something is big and exciting enough that it has the confidence to completely circumvent the months-long pre-release hype and just exist on the spot.

Shadow drops are terrible- Surprise! The games people have carefully planned the release of to squeeze out the maximum amount of attention on a marketing budget of $1.50 and yelling real loud in hopes anyone anywhere will notice just got their launches torpedoed.

Is there a way to knock the rough edges off the practice of shadow drops or is it just that you need to take the bad with the good? Do the advantages of being exciting for players outweigh how inconsiderate it can be to other developers? Sucking up all the air in the room for a week or so isn't an unexpected consequence, and in fact it's a goal of a successful shadow drop. It feels kind of noncommittal/centrist to sit back with an "It is what it is" kind of attitude, but really, what other option is there? Even the biggest games are fighting for player attention, after all, and a well-executed shadow drop can be an effective way to earn it.

 

[CloseTalker]

I think implementing them strategically can be really favorable. Apex Legends releasing out of nowhere to very high acclaim was a pretty special moment, and absolutely worked in their favor.

If you're speaking of Hi-Fi Rush, that game would have never warranted an expensive months-long marketing campaign. Shadow dropping it was a calculated bet to try to get it as much exposure as possible, and I'd argue it was likely the smart move.

Shadow drops aren't always the move, you'd never do it for something like a Starfield where you need a ton of attention and sales to recoup the investment, but I think they can be quite savvy.

 

[SunBroDave]

Hi-Fi Rush's shadow drop, whether intentionally so or not, worked in the game's favor. For like a week or two, Hi-Fi Rush was all that anyone was talking about. It had something like 4 million players or something total.

The game reached a tremendous amount of players, given the environment in which it released into (Xbox/PC exclusive, and available through Game Pass)

 

[Richardi]

Wasn't the Saturn, or the Dreamcast shadow dropped?

 

[CloseTalker]

Wasn't the Saturn, or the Dreamcast shadow dropped?

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Saturn. Yes, don't shadow drop new hardware lol

 

[Richardi]

Saturn. Yes, don't shadow drop new hardware lol

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What could possibly go wrong?

 

[duckroll]

If I understand the OP correctly, the "terrible" scenario is that a shadow drop could interrupt another unrelated game's launch unfairly. To me this is an irrelevant point because no one is entitled to consideration by unrelated parties on release strategy in an open marketplace. Planning any launch comes with some degree of measured risk as you have no idea what might happen in that window. It's just part of the business and there's no harm no foul.

Shadow Drops are hence awesome and as far as possible if they can be done, they are always cool and beneficial.

 

[SaberVS7]

If I understand the OP correctly, the "terrible" scenario is that a shadow drop could interrupt another unrelated game's launch unfairly. To me this is an irrelevant point because no one is entitled to consideration by unrelated parties on release strategy in an open marketplace. Planning any launch comes with some degree of measured risk as you have no idea what might happen in that window. It's just part of the business and there's no harm no foul.

Shadow Drops are hence awesome and as far as possible if they can be done, they are always cool and beneficial.

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I think this is explicitly about Hades 2 and the controversy around it's shadow shadowdrop.

Particularly how Supergiant is now at a scale where they're perceived as "crowding out" other indie devs.

 

[Jamesac68]

I think this is explicitly about Hades 2 and the controversy around it's shadow shadowdrop.

Particularly how Supergiant is now at a scale where they're perceived as "crowding out" other indie devs.

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There was another one earlier this year (late last year?) that for the life of me I can't remember, and it also impacted other developers' releases.

 

[Nyaghoggua]

It seems like there's a big new indie hit every week on PC for the past month. The excitement is cool sure but giving a date is a courtesy everyone deserves.

 

[Swiggins]

I remember when Apex shadow-dropped and it was all me and my buddies could play for weeks.

Those were the Halcyon days.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

What could possibly go wrong?

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Caught third parties out as well.

Really bad idea.

 

[Knight613]

Felt like it only really worked well if it was a demo or if the majority of people could play it for free.

 

[Garrison]

Every gaas game should be shadow dropped imo.

No matter how good a gaas game can be it's going to be labeled as trash by "the community" as soon as possible especially if the dev was doing something else before. But I don't even remember the last time a gaas was promoted heavily before release and it was a good idea other than Fortnite and what was promoted was different than what it became. Apex was perfect shadow drop because if it was shown and later released months after I'm sure everyone would have been in an uproar about Respawn being "forced" to do this and whatever.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

The biggest shadow drop was P.T for this era and it influenced a lot of games. I wonder if even Kojima can replicate that moment.

 

[Ciao]

I wish every game was shadowdropped. I want to wake up one morning and there's a Vagrant Story 2 on the PS Store.

 

[Anustart]

I don't really worry about the health or success of a product. I don't lose sleep at night thinking about how much more something could have sold if only it were marketed a little more.

 

[Pendas]

Every gaas game should be shadow dropped imo.

No matter how good a gaas game can be it's going to be labeled as trash by "the community" as soon as possible especially if the dev was doing something else before. But I don't even remember the last time a gaas was promoted heavily before release and it was a good idea other than Fortnite and what was promoted was different than what it became. Apex was perfect shadow drop because if it was shown and later released months after I'm sure everyone would have been in an uproar about Respawn being "forced" to do this and whatever.

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Pretty odd claim to make considering Helldivers 2 released like three months ago.

 

[CloseTalker]

I don't really worry about the health or success of a product. I don't lose sleep at night thinking about how much more something could have sold if only it were marketed a little more.

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That's totally fair. It's not our job to worry about how games are marketed.

 

[AstronaughtE]

I've never really understood the love of, or obsession with, them.

Maybe I'm little suspicious of them, maybe I need those months long teases to really set the mood, or maybe I've just never had one that clicked for me, but shadow drops, they've never been all that exciting to me.

The main thing for me is how much fans seem to love them. That's about the extent of the joy or excitement I get from them.

 

[Wil Grieve]

I definitely wouldn't have been as interested in Hi-Fi Rush if not for the one-two punch of "The Evil Within people made THIS? AND IT'S OUT NOW?!"

 

[ghibli99]

I'm indifferent, but Penny's Big Breakaway was an interesting one. I think a lot of people were excited for that one, including me, but when it released with the issues it had (I got stuck on a wall within the first minute or two of play and died), I felt a little burned on my impulse buy. It's been patched, but I haven't gone back to play it since I was soured on it rather quickly. With the months that have passed though, I think maybe I will give it another shot this weekend if I have time.

 

[Super Craig]

There was another one earlier this year (late last year?) that for the life of me I can't remember, and it also impacted other developers' releases.

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It was EA adding a bunch of their older games to Steam.

 

[NDA-Man]

Hi-Fi Rush's shadow drop, whether intentionally so or not, worked in the game's favor. For like a week or two, Hi-Fi Rush was all that anyone was talking about. It had something like 4 million players or something total.

The game reached a tremendous amount of players, given the environment in which it released into (Xbox/PC exclusive, and available through Game Pass)

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I definitely wouldn't have been as interested in Hi-Fi Rush if not for the one-two punch of "The Evil Within people made THIS? AND IT'S OUT NOW?!"

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Yeah. As much as this past week sucked (God damn it), a small-scale comedy game stuck between two genres that were themselves niche was never going to warrant a big push. And, I don't want to go tinfoil hat, but I think had it been a traditionally announced game, there would be pushback at it (Evil Within team is doing this?), I remember a lot of ire from... corners of the internet over quippy, quirky main casts last year. I think by shadow-dropping it AT an event where everyone interested had eyes on, you could attract as many potential players as possible. I'm not sure a traditional launch would've done better.

 

[Jamesac68]

It was EA adding a bunch of their older games to Steam.

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Oh right, I remember now! All those games piling in at once killed actual new releases being seen. That front-page listing is important for as long as it lasts.

 

[Wesker]

I'd rather have a shadow drop (like Hi-Fi Rush) than a game being announced too early and everyone forgetting about it (Hellblade II).

 

[dgrdsv]

I'd rather have a shadow drop (like Hi-Fi Rush) than a game being announced too early and everyone forgetting about it (Hellblade II).

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Everyone forgot about Hi-Fi Rush being available just as well tho.
Both are failures of marketing but with "shadow drops" it's essentially a given that there will be a failure while with a game which was announced previously it's just a failure.
Vastly prefer games being announced whatever the hell time prior to release. Don't care in the slightest if it's a month or 10 years.

 

[LewieP]

I think it's kinda neat, because it's fun to be surprised by a cool game that you can play immediately, but it's far from a magic bullet to guarantee or elevate success. Here's a list of successful shadowdrops and why they worked:

Apex Legends: spin off from an existing successful AAA IP, and EA literally flew loads of big streamers to an event they hosted and play it all weekend. Free to play game.

Tetris 99: It's Tetris, it was included with Nintendo's subscription, and heavily promoted on a Nintendo Direct and all other Nintendo channels.

PT: Completely free, announced by Hideo Kojima live on stage at E3. Buzz grew as people discovered the AAA Hollywood talent involved, and the IP it was based in.

Hades: high profile Epic backed title, shadowdropped as an Epic store exclusive in the early access phase, from a very highly regarded multi-award winning indie studio. Only really became a smash hit much later when it arrived on Steam/consoles in v1.0.

Hi-Fi Rush: yes this was a successful launch. Heavily promoted by Microsoft, and it's their first high profile new IP for the Xbox in a while, released during a traditionally quiet month, and available on Game Pass.

I think those are all the big shadowdrop success stories, common factors are: none of these are relying on upfront sales, all heavily promoted by a major entity in games, each has at least some kind of hook to basically have a built in audience from the moment it was announced. For this strategy to have any real chance of working, I think you'd want to hit most/all of those.

 

[PettySpirit]

Love shadowdrops, and I'll take a shadowdrop over tweets about announcements of announcements of games that won't be ready for another 4+ years.

 

[Paz]

I love shadow drops because they bring me back to a time in pre internet culture where it was impossible for you to know about everything 2 years ahead of time and so you'd actually have to find stuff yourself and then dive into something and talk with other people about it.

But from a creators point of view it's just an absurd risk that only the largest marketing campaigns, store backing, or existing pedigree/audience connection can sustain.

I will never be able to shadow drop a game due to lacking that power. The worst cases are when multiple games are planning a shadow drop of some kind and tie in around the same or similar timed events, I've seen this once or twice in recent years and it fucking sucks for the game that doesn't get major traction because they've bet everything on a shadow drop and it's now zero sum with the other release.

Oh right, I remember now! All those games piling in at once killed actual new releases being seen. That front-page listing is important for as long as it lasts.

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Interestingly with steam I think statisticially it kind of isn't, any news generated by talking about it would probably 10x the return on being on that list for a little while. Discovery on store platforms is extremely complicated these days.

 

[Brodo Baggins]

Shadowdrops can be good, and I'd argue it even worked for Hi-Fi Rush. Microsoft just didn't do its job of promoting it or evaluating its impact on their portfolio + game pass.

For games of a certain size it makes no sense. You can't shadow drop an AAA game, but for something like DLC/a feature patch for a game which already has built-in users or a smaller game you expect to sell on word of mouth it makes perfect sense. Consolidate your news cycle with no barriers to getting players on board.

 

[CloseTalker]

I love shadow drops because they bring me back to a time in pre internet culture where it was impossible for you to know about everything 2 years ahead of time and so you'd actually have to find stuff yourself and then dive into something and talk with other people about it.

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That's true. It was fun to actually be able to discover games out of nowhere. That still happens with indies sometimes, but it's rare

 

[Granjinhaa]

There was another one earlier this year (late last year?) that for the life of me I can't remember, and it also impacted other developers' releases.

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Deltarune Chapter 2.

 

[Dead Man Typing]

I do love that Shadow Drop has become the term for this. All credit to whoever came up with it which currently is believed to be Isla from Easy Allies.

Shadow Drops are a risk because you are negating release day hype in the hopes that the surprise is enough to generate excitement. I think it works more than it fails.

 

[Bardeh]

I remember when Apex was announced.

"Oh shit, this looks cool."

"Oh SHIT I can play it right the fuck now?"

"Holy fuck this game is amazing!"

Honestly one of the most memorable gaming moments for me, even though I don't play the game anymore. It just appeared, fully formed, and completely changed the BR game.

 

[Super Craig]

Oh right, I remember now! All those games piling in at once killed actual new releases being seen. That front-page listing is important for as long as it lasts.

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To be fair, in that case it probably worked out better for the developer. I don't think anyone had heard of her game before the shadow drop.

 

[th1nk]

The Metroid Prime Remastered shadowdrop was one of the greatest days of my life lol