Why are gamers so eager to trust and even forgive the snake oil salesmen?

[thomasmahler]

This is something that's been bothering me for a while and I get kinda riled up about it every time I see it unfold. And every time it keeps happening, people keep falling for it...

It all started with Molyneux. He was the master of 'Instead of telling you what my product is, let me just go wild with what I think it could be and get you all excited!" - And that was fine, until you actually put your money down and then the game was nothing like what Peter was hyping it up to be. He pulled this shit for a good decade or more with journalists and gamers loving listening to Uncle Peter and the amazing things he's doing for the industry. It took him to release some pretty damn shoddy games for press and gamers to finally not listen to the lies anymore.

Then came Sean Murray, who apparently had learned straight from the Peter Molyneux handbook. This guy apparently just loooooved the spotlight. Even days before No Man's Sky released, he hyped up the Multiplayer that didn't even exist and was all too happy to let people think that No Man's Sky was 'Minecraft in Space', where you could literally do everything (you being able to do everything is generally a common theme behind the gaming snake oil salesmen, cause hey, that sorta attracts everybody!). Obviously there was massive backlash when No Man's Sky finally released and the product being nothing like what Murray hyped it up to be. But what happened then? They released a bunch of updates, so let's forget about the initial lies and deception and hey, let's actually shower him with awards again, cause he finally kinda sorta delivered on what he said the game would be years earlier. Thanks, Geoff Keighley. Rewarding that kinda behavior will surely help the industry grow stronger.

And then came Cyberpunk. Made by the guys that made Witcher 3, so this shit had to be good. Here's our Cyberpunk universe and - trust us - you can do fucking everything! Here the entire CDPR PR department took all the cues from what worked for Molyneux and Murray and just went completely apeshit with it. Gamers were to believe that this is "Sci-Fi GTA in First Person". What's not to love? Every video released by CDPR was carefully crafted to create a picture in players minds that was just insanely compelling. They stopped just short of outright saying that this thing would cure cancer. This strategy resulted in a sensational 8 million pre-orders. What happened then was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CymqHdNYkg&ab_channel=BeatEmUps. The product was a fraction of what the developer hyped it up to be and on top of that it barely even ran on consoles that it was supposed to 'run surprisingly well on!'.

I'd argue that all 3 of those are clear examples of you folks all being made fools of. And even the 'journalists' in this industry happily played along, each and every single time.

And let me also say, from the perspective of a developer, all of this just sucks. Back in 2014, I remember some journalist from some big publication telling us that Ori almost got the cover article of some magazine I read frequently, but ultimately they had to pick No Man's Sky cause it was the 'bigger game'. I kinda agreed back then, thinking to myself: "Ok, I get it, they have to promote the bigger game, they obviously have to go for the clicks. Sucks, but that's how the game is played." But then I really felt bamboozled once No Man's Sky came out and it became clear that all this hype was really just built on lies and the honest guy who just showed his actual product really got kicked in the balls because the lying guy was able to make up some tall tales that held absolutely no substance.

I know this whole thread might come off as me sounding bitter and I'm sure there'll be some people that see this as me shitting on other devs. No, I'm not. I'm shitting on liars and people that are okay with openly deceiving others. I'd argue that we should all agree that this shit is not okay. If I go and buy a car and the car salesman sells me a car that supposedly has 300 horse power, but on the drive home after the purchase I notice that he switched out the motor when I wasn't looking, I'd be rightfully pissed off, cause I was deceived.

And yet, gamers and journalists don't really seem to mind all that much. Yeah, the backlash is coming, but usually you see a ton of people then arguing that they like the game that came out of it anyway. That is so not the point. It doesn't matter if the snake oil actually tastes fine. Don't sell me on features that don't exist. Don't paint a picture that you'll not be able to deliver. Just don't fucking lie to me. You're fucking over gamers, you're fucking over journalists (that should know better, so shame on you!) and you're fucking over other developers.

There, I said my piece, felt like a chip I needed to get off my shoulder and I think this is a wrong that we should set right so that this won't happen anymore.

 

[Klyka]

Gamers still want to believe that video games are magic and not an industry and that their little 400$ boxes can produce anything at any scope and fidelity the human mind can imagine without drawbacks

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Agreed completely. The game that I first noticed this for that really, REALLY pissed me off was Bioshock Infinite. The initial demos, and then the "Heavy Hitter" video... The actual game barely even resembled what they showed. I know things change during development, but it's absolutely misleading. And sadly it's a trend that has caught on with this industry. I especially get your frustration as a developer that doesn't try to sell their game as anything other than what it is.

 

[SigSig]

You sound like one of those bitter reddit gamer outrage pushers, tbh. Molyneux made amazing games and No Man's Sky delivered despite the immense pressure they had to face. Neither is comparable to Cyberpunk, context is a thing.

 

[eXistor]

Publishers and developers are dealers and gamers are addicts. At the end of the day addicts really just want that good stuff in their veins, no matter where it comes from.

 

[Richter1887]

NMS is an indie game that had very few people working on it, while having difficult situations like their studio getting flooded while developing. And yes they did lie and that was a really bad thing. At the end of the day they delivered on what they promised on even when they could have taken the money and ran.

It is very different to the other two.

 

[julia crawford]

Hum.

Sean Murray has been consistently open about how he wasn't ready for the spotlight and did not have any training for media presence and that it was very hard for him to be clear and concise with what he revealed about the game and how he spoke about its features.

 

[SuikerBrood]

If No Man's Sky is now a good game, then it is a good game. I play videogames to have fun and I look for games which offer me just that. No Man's Sky, Se aof Thieves, Rainbow Six Siege, Fallout 76, etc. have all been criticized at launch and praised with their updates. What we learn from this? Never. Never. Pre-order a game.

 

[Desmond]

CTRL+F: Kojima

He talks just as much bollocks as Molyneux but you can't deny that they have made some revolutionary stuff.

And talking bollocks to sell games isn't just limited to them

 

[Dervius]

I agree to an extent, there is a negative cycle of hype certain personalities in the industry feed on, build wildly unrealistic expectations and then woefully underdeliver. This often leads to backlash, but always with a stalwart defense force (just see r/lowsodiumcyberpunk).

No Man's Sky is a slightly unique example in that much of the backlash was warranted, and Hello Games spent literally years building the game well past the initial promise with charging an extra penny. It's almost the exemplar comeback story in gaming bested only by maybe FF XIV. Chuck in it releasing in a far more complete state on other platforms and all of a sudden the general sentiment toward them has shifted enormously and rightfully so in my opinion.

 

[bonch00ski]

I mean I get where you're coming from, BUT at least in CDPR's example they kind of earned that ability to give a consumer the impression that Cyberpunk could cure cancer. When you look at what Witcher 3 ended up being and all the work they put into it they earned that trust.

Granted they fucked it all up and basically lost all that built up good will.....they still earned it prior to Cyberpunk being released.

 

[Plinkerton]

All I can say is you're right about all of this.

I think that, for as cynical as gamers are, they still want to be excited about things, and want to be blown away. They're often happy to turn a blind eye to obvious concerns about a game in the name of being "hyped" (a good example being CP2077; anyone who was even half paying attention would have seen that coming).

I think that then creates a cycle where publishers/developers know the market will get themselves hyped up about a game and will feed into that and fuel the excitement with what's usually total bullshit (your two examples of Molyneux and Murray being great ones). And gamers are more than happy to be on the receiving end of that, because it's fun to be excited about something new.

Ultimately it comes down to gamers actively wanted to be hyped about things, and having short enough memories that the failures don't hit as hard and are forgotten about by the time the sequel comes around.

 

[Necron]

Because we forget too easily and love to get excited.

 

[Nikus]

We can't all be resentful shits forever

The idea that nothing bad happened to Sean Murray and everybody forgave him is fucking laughable

 

[T0kenAussie]

Because the biggest voices in video games are usually marketing and PR departments. Not necessarily dev studios either but media likes a big fish to sell copies although now it's to drive engagement to their website / channel

 

[Chairman Yang]

Although these things take time, reputations do catch up with developers eventually, for good or ill. Keep overpromising and underdelivering, you end up like BioWare or Peter Molyneux himself. Keep releasing great games, you end up with a growing, rabid, trusting fanbase. CD Projekt was like that with each new release, and only stumbled with their latest. They burned up tons of goodwill, but they did build up that goodwill in the first place. Without it, they wouldn't have sold so much. And now, you can be sure their next game will be met with much more skepticism.

 

[Ceannaire]

I dont fully agree that some of these developers were straight up lying, but bring up an interesting point Ori vs No Man Sky fighting for a magazine cover.
feels like a bit like a feedback loop. most hyped game gets the covers,videos,articles which in turn means its hype is increased and more likely to be subject of more hype generating material later on. rinse, repeat.
RDR2 and cyberpunk are fairly recent examples where felt like they were hype saturated as launch approached.

 

[KDR_11k]

Because the Snake Oiler is super OP in West of Loathing.

 

[Het_Nkik]

NMS is an indie game that had very few people working on it, while having difficult situations like their studio getting flooded while developing. And yes they did lie and that was a really bad thing. At the end of the day they delivered on what they promised on even when they could have taken the money and ran.

It is very different to the other two.

Click to shrink...

Is it, though? If CDPR spends the next couple years changing Cyberpunk into what they were selling it as, then it's all good because they delivered what they promised? I don't think that's how it should work.

 

[Strings]

CTRL+F: Kojima

He talks just as much bollocks as Molyneux but you can't deny that they have made some revolutionary stuff.

And talking bollocks to sell games isn't just limited to them

Click to shrink...

Ehhhh. Kojima has actually gotten a lot of crazy Molyneux type lies into his games and working (without even mentioning that stuff in the leadup to release). It's a completely different thing to the whole 'plant a tree and come back to see it fully grown', cut to the development team going 'what the fuck?' in a room somewhere scenario.

Folks were willing to put up with Molyneux while he was releasing great games like Black and White, but obviously his output wavered and now he's known as a bit of a joke.

 

[jakershaker]

Because Molyneux, Hello Games and CDPR has made some of the best games ever. Despite PR mistakes which frankly, is as much on the people hyping and preordering as the companies themselves.

Being somewhat sane and not making your whole existance about an upcoming title is an easy way not to get affected.

The worst one in the list is No Mans Sky though, who could have known that they would fix it and give so much support afterwards. Truly a master class in how to better your product when it gets released overhyped and a state resembling early access.

But these things will continue to happen, seems like being reactive and writing just about anything just for a few more clicks is the way. The gaming press is doing it and have been for a long time. You see it on commentary fields, reddit and on forums like resetera. People like drama, something easy to understand and divisive.

So my take is that we perhaps don't care? The media cycle is too entertaining. And those three examples you gave have all led to stellar games which is what we want in the end.

 

[HBK]

People are just happy when they finally get their dose of whatever drug they're dependent on. Not a new bias and definitely not something specific to video games.

Look at how much people defend actual snake oil salesmen with "it worked on me" etc.

 

[T0kenAussie]

There, I said my piece, felt like a chip I needed to get off my shoulder and I think this is a wrong that we should set right so that this won't happen anymore.

Click to shrink...

This is awfully optimistic. the gaming landscape and the internet in general have pretty gold fish like memories when it comes to this stuff.

 

[Hella]

It is deeply irresponsible to encourage gamer rage for any reason, especially as a developer.

Please, don't.

 

[CaviarMeths]

And even the 'journalists' in this industry happily played along, each and every single time.

Click to shrink...

I wanted to respond to this specifically because I think it's the root of so much of the problem. Gaming press is unofficial marketing. The incestuous relationship between video game publishers and press is so bad for consumers. But consumers don't even care because hype is a way of life. Gamers will relentlessly attack and cannibalize any outlet that doesn't toe to hype line on Big New Game from Darling Studio, right up until launch day. Just hours before Cyberpunk launched, there was yet another coordinated harassment campaign against a reviewer who dared to point out a few problems with the game. Then hours after Cyberpunk released and people started playing it, they admitted that the reviewer was actually not harsh enough in their criticisms. Whoopsie!

I don't even know what the solution is. Gamers suck, game press sucks, and snake oil salesmen are just playing to an audience. The Molyneuxs of the world would go away if anyone showed a shred of discernment. Like, how do you even improve things when a lot of people still miss E3 press conferences because they really, really just want to watch a room full of professional, credentialed writers do this:

 

[Richter1887]

Is it, though? If CDPR spends the next couple years changing Cyberpunk into what they were selling it as, then it's all good because they delivered what they promised? I don't think that's how it should work.

Click to shrink...

The difference is that CDPR were over promising and were actively trying to deceive. They molded this "nice guy" persona they had and were using shady techniques for good media coverage. They knew what they were doing and kept blaming others for their mess.

Sean meanwhile over promised before release and messed up by not being honest. He lied. But the reason I do give him slack is that they were an indie studio that got popular over night and didn't know how to handle it. They never blamed others for their mess and stayed quiet while fixing the game until they delivered what people wanted and more.

 

[SanTheSly]

I agree that there is a problem with the misrepresentation of the quality of games, and notable figureheads overpromising and being repeatedly forgiven and trusted when games underdeliver; Molyneux, Todd Howard, CDPR, Star Citizen, etc.

I'm not even gonna include Sean Murray or NMS in that list because of the fact that the game was put under a way bigger spotlight than anyone at Hello Games was ever expecting, Murray wasn't prepared, and they damn well put the work in to make it a better experience. I agree the marketing missold the game at launch but I'm not about to put anyone on blast for it.

But... I dunno, this thread feels REALLY weird coming from the perspective it does. Especially the Ori magazine story.

Edit:

Buddy y'all have made some extremely well made, well received and beloved games. I think that speaks louder than any forum post where you're "not really" throwing your peers under a bus.

Click to shrink...

Yeahhhhh, this is kinda how I'm feeling about it.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

What you're saying is true to an extent, but as a developer, surely you also appreciate the fact that thing. You've chosen some extremely egregious examples, but it's not always so much a case of developers lying so much as it is being incredibly poor at setting expectations properly, which is a problem considering how difficult it is for ambitious, big-budget games to actually come together coherently. That scenario is a lot more common than the case studies you're citing.

The end result is still the same of course, but it's disingenuous to say that in most instances it's a case of blatant lying and snake oil salesmanship. In my experience, developers need to be more cautious about what they announce and when, and set expectations accordingly. Not necessarily an easy thing to do but it's becoming more important as games increase in scope.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

Buddy y'all have made some extremely well made, well received and beloved games. I think that speaks louder than any forum post where you're "not really" throwing your peers under a bus. Like, you of all people should understand how these situations arise. Most are not malicious, I don't get why you're framing it as such.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

You description of the No Man's Sky situation is very reductive, reducing the work done on the game since it's initial launch as "a bunch of updates" doesn't describe how far it's come. That game is in a far better now place then it was even initially advertised as. What you're basically saying is that if a developer fucks up then there's no point in trying to make the situation right because they should be tarred for life.

I think for the most part, these devs come in with pretty good intentions but maybe bite off more than they can chew and then get to the point where they have to kick the game out the door regardless due to the need to actually sell a product.
If this is enough to put people off them or their future projects then that's totally fair but it's also fine for people to keep tabs on the situation and adjust their perspective accordingly. Time will tell when it comes to Cyberpunk.

One person/game I notice being absent from the OP is Chris Roberts and Star Citizen. If you want to talk about snake oil salesmen then he's a good subject.

 

[daegan]

I expected this thread to be about Pitchford tbh.

 

[Glio]

Gamers move between disproportionate hype and disproportionate cynicism.

 

[Bxrz]

Look at the AAA space. Its dominated by 6/10 games made by EA, Ubisoft, Activision, ect. Of course we are going to get hyped when someone other than these guys release a big game

Gamers are fickle and will run back if the next game is good (or even if it isn't tbh. People still hype over Bioware games and they havnt made a good game since.... 🤷🏽‍♂️).

 

[Menchi]

Your own examples are wildly different in the way they were lies, so it's hard to really take them as a "consistent example" of "gamers" enjoying being lied to...

It isn't that people enjoy being lied to, it is simply people being excited at what -could- be. Yes, in Molyneux case, there needed to be a lot more tempering of expectations, though part of the problem with his really stand out period of "ambition" (Project Milo etc) was it was heavily backed by Microsoft at the time, so he was lent an air of credibility that he might not have had. Still, he was exactly as you say, a liar.

NMS & Cyberpunk seem much more in line with the more problematic part of the industry, which you haven't seemingly acknowledged at all, that is expectations for games forcing massive amounts of crunch, or effort to reach given deadlines. Both games suffered from repeated delays, and no doubt had entire gameplay avenues planned, that were never going to be complete by those deadlines.

Both titles deserve heavy criticism for failing to meet those targets, but maybe we need to look at the constant push to have things received on time, with little concern for how that will impact the end product.

Particularly, in NMS case, you make it sound like a bad thing that they actually stuck with the game after the initial release, and have arguably gone on to make the game pretty much what they said it would, and even now, still continue to update it, all free of charge, which is a miracle in the current gaming industry. So yes, after the huge fall from grace (which was arguably partially down to Sony pushing NMS as the next coming) they were always a small, indie company, that promised more than they could give then, but have gotten pretty close since. By all means, they deserve accolades for doing that given most in the industry -do- abandon projects that don't succeed at launch.

I just think you've been particularly unfair to NMS, and given you have reason to seem aggrieved, it does come off as a tad bitter, unfortunately.

 

[thomasmahler]

It is deeply irresponsible to encourage gamer rage for any reason, especially as a developer.

Please, don't.

Click to shrink...

Oh, please don't take it the wrong way, gamer rage is fucking bullshit and none of these companies should get hassled. You vote with your wallets. I just think it's an interesting subject to discuss.

 

[Javier]

Given the poor description of NMS's situation you gave i'll take this chance to share this video for anyone who's truly interested about what happened there and why it's considered such a particular case in games development.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

Hum.

Sean Murray has been consistently open about how he wasn't ready for the spotlight and did not have any training for media presence and that it was very hard for him to be clear and concise with what he revealed about the game and how he spoke about its features.

Click to shrink...

Another solid point. To me, he always came across as extremely anxious in interviews.

 

[SlickShoes]

Should we never forgive these people? They are all vastly different situations too. How long is the perfect time to hold a grudge?

Have you ever had a project go horribly wrong? Sometimes when things are going wrong on a big project you legitimately think you can still deliver and turn it around.

In the case of No Man's Sky, Sean was so far out of his depth it was unreal, you can watch back some of the interviews and it looks like he hasn't slept for weeks. Sony should have helped out here with a marketing team, he clearly took on too much and massively fucked it. Does this make him a horrible person who I should never forgive?

 

[dunkzilla]

man, this op is bitter as fuck re: NMS. not something I expected from a dev, assumed they would be more aware.

 

[julia crawford]

man, this op is bitter as fuck re: NMS. not something I expected from a dev, assumed they would be more aware.

Click to shrink...

I was expecting this to be about gamer goggles or sodas or something like that.

 

[brokenswiftie]

Jesus Christ Come on
all this coming from a dev for all things
Ori 2 ran like shit on my Xbox and kept constantly crashing every 30 mins with poor performance that took more than a week to fix
should I be forever resentful to you too?
your entire post is incredibly reductionist about the work devs do to make these games. you should know this
Its just video games and people are allowed to be hyped and to forgive
Every time I see one of your posts here it's probably shitting on other devs

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Because we life in a totally sick Hype and FOMO society and people WANT to believe the lies to get hyped.

It's really easy to avoid though. Just wait for release and see some impressions of actual users. Don't trust professional reviews as well. And these days it's almost guaranteed that the game will be (a lot) better a few months after release and less expensive. There are exceptions of course. But in most cases this works really well for me personally.

 

[dunkzilla]

I was expecting this to be about gamer goggles or sodas or something like that.

Click to shrink...

or publishers pushing horrible money making tactics. but nah attacking devs that were out of their depth (and open about how they fucked up because of that) is an easy target I guess

 

[Rosebud]

I don't think Cyberpunk 2077 is the same situation as No Man's Sky at all. The latter promised too much, but CDPR manipulated reviews and released a literally unplayable game for most users.

Also, NMS is being updated for free since launch, including things like VR support and next-gen upgrades. I think they deserve the recognition.

 

[Blent]

Then came Sean Murray, who apparently had learned straight from the Peter Molyneux handbook. This guy apparently just loooooved the spotlight. Even days before No Man's Sky released, he hyped up the Multiplayer that didn't even exist and was all too happy to let people think that No Man's Sky was 'Minecraft in Space', where you could literally do everything (you being able to do everything is generally a common theme behind the gaming snake oil salesmen, cause hey, that sorta attracts everybody!). Obviously there was massive backlash when No Man's Sky finally released and the product being nothing like what Murray hyped it up to be. But what happened then? They released a bunch of updates, so let's forget about the initial lies and deception and hey, let's actually shower him with awards again, cause he finally kinda sorta delivered on what he said the game would be years earlier. Thanks, Geoff Keighley. Rewarding that kinda behavior will surely help the industry grow stronger.

Click to shrink...

I strongly object to this characterisation of Murray and Hello Games - especially the highlighted.

Yes, Murray and HG made some massive mistakes and deserved a fair degree of valid criticism, but it was far more complicated than them being 'Snake Oil Salesmen' hoodwinking the paying public.

Watching everything with Murray pre-release of NMS and by his own admission in interviews, he HATED the spotlight and all the attention. It was just that he was the head of a very small studio and the only one who could represent the company in public. He made some massive errors and failed to keep expectations realistic, but with the weight of a Sony marketing push behind them, it's pretty clear that the entire team were out of their depth when it came to messaging and they fucked up.

In the years since No Man's Sky was released, Hello Games have done more than enough to improve and expand their game to evolve it far beyond what they initially promised in many regards. And all of it has been for free.

They earned valid criticism for the build up to launch, but if you seriously consider everything that they have done since the game was released to try and make up for their mistakes and deliver a game that was worthy of what it was always promised to be and you still consider him a 'Snake Oil Salesman', then I don't know what to tell you.

It's a completely different scenario compared to CD Projekt Red for a myriad of reasons.

 

[BradenAndEggs]

This is probably naive but I don't think these people are trying to sell "snake oil." I think most of these people are generally really passionate about their art they are making and it gets out of hand when speaking about it. Games like NMS that have actively been trying to correct "mistakes" go a long way in repairing my opinion. (Even though I haven't played NMS since launch.)

I don't know. I just don't have it in me to be that angry about the larger situation. If you don't like these situations then don't buy games until reviews? Sometimes I think the wider gaming community goes too far into the "cynical skeptic joy killer gamer" area. Just hype responsibly. If people are excited and it makes you upset why bother killing someone's excitement. Let everyone make their own choices. I don' know.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Didnt people shit on Sean Murray for ages especially on places like ERA ? He and the team worked their way up again with a bunch of patches and updated, otherwise people would still trash him.

Sony marketing hyped the game up way too much and he got caught in the moment, with no means to slow down expectations once the train left the station.

 

[Dinjooh]

We can't all be resentful shits forever

The idea that nothing bad happened to Sean Murray and everybody forgave him is fucking laughable

Click to shrink...

Yep. If this is somehow is your take after all these years, then you either haven't paid attention to what he went through at all or you're just wilfully ignorant .

 

[Alexandros]

It is deeply irresponsible to encourage gamer rage for any reason, especially as a developer.

Please, don't.

Click to shrink...

How is calling out snake oil salesmen encouraging gamer rage?

 

[Schlorgan]

So what you're saying is that gamers should rise up