sidspyker said:
The game has been announced for a fair while now and all we had in one year were two very small tidbits. You can try to pass that of as teasing but it is more likely proof of how far the game is process wise. The fact that there are big bombs this year should be no suprise, they have to release some real footage at some point and not doing so this year means that even early 2015 is unlikely.
You realize that Amazon does not just randomly start taking pre-orders for games without first talking to the developer or publisher, right? Sept 30th certainly could have been a placeholder itself, but the fact that they changed it to a much more obvious placeholder date (Dec 31st) suggests the first date might have some merit to it as the GA date (or close-ish to it).Csszr said:
Really? Really? What gameplay have you personally seen that looked unpolished, exactly? Go ahead, provide examples.Csszr said:
Do you have any idea what an unpolished release game looks like, nowadays? Just from this year, take a look at Battlefield 4, Aliens Colonial Marines, NBA Live 14, or X-Rebirth. Compared to these released games, TW3 already looks ready to go. Of course, I am not suggesting that they release it soon. I'm saying that if TW3 was in a presentable enough state six months ago to demo for and impress the gaming media at E3, it is certainly polished enough now to release something substantial for public consumption.
Yep, and the visible evidence is that their PR strategy is utter garbage. They have let the PR buzz from E3 2013 thoroughly disappear, not to mention the little bump from the VGX show. That's not to say they won't recover in 2014, and certainly to a big degree they will because their product is so good. But the potential for public awareness of TW3 at this point is so much higher than they have managed to achieve, it's sad.gregski said:
It is a good thing the gaming media was so enthralled with the private presentations and previews, as their TW3 news puff pieces in homage to the game are the only thing keeping TW3 in the public's collective consciousness at this point.
gregski said:
Which, of course, could mean one of several things, including that there's been a delay in production. I'm however more inclined to believe they subscribe to the Perennial Tease approach.
Their PR strategy is working. This game is being lusted for like January's Playmate. I'd even venture into guessing that if it were released tomorrow, with gamers having been shown this little, the game would sell like brioche just out of the oven.
Again, DA:I, which is coming out next Fall, has been featured extensively in gameplay previews and public showings. Guess what? Their 30 minute demo has generated far less enthusiasm than those TW3 micro snippets.
Yup, the PR's working all right.
But, akin to other areas of life, tease must eventually give way to substance.
omniknight said:
I'm no marketing guru to decide that their strategy is "utter garbage". I would say that they are trying a different approach.
It would be hard for them to hit a level of hype they did at E3 this year and maintain or even increase it for another, let's say, 1,5 year - if TW3 releases somewhere in Autumn 2014.
Instead, they are fueling the hypetrain in "spikes" by releasing new trailers each few months, making the hype level go higher with every new release. Yeah, it dies down for some time but I would say it stays well ingrained in gaming community consciousness, right until the next reveal/trailer hits. I bet they will increase the density of those hype "spikes" this year, the closer we get to release.
Until TW3 hits, and who knows, maybe it's really THAT good that CDPR feels confident about their marketing strategy cause they know they've got good product to support it?
omniknight said:
I would say to maintain the same level of enthusiasm for at least 12-16 months is impossible. Actually, did why people decide that CDRP's goal was to appeal to the gamers? As I see it this was a campaign aimed at publishers and distributors, to demonstrate the game's potential, and to have enough time to make good business deals and to sign agreeable contracts in order to avoid a repetition of TW2 DRM problem. I have read somewhere that aggressive advertising should start to earlier than six months before the release, otherwise it is a wasted effort. As I see it CDPR did not even start advertising, and aggressively promoting their game to influence future sales. I expect it no sooner than spring.
I'm at a loss as to why people seem to think they are entitled to be given extended video footage of an unreleased product almost a year ahead of the expected release date.
They've created huge buzz with the likes of Game Informer, E3, VGX and the various interviews in between. They are constantly in the top 2 of most anticipated games, and one of the larger sites, can't remember the name, was so excited for it they had already put up a mock review of the game.
Marketing dollars are not unlimited, marketing has to be tactical, and it's best to have your marketing push closest to the release date, and demonstrate it in detail and in a big way, when all if not most of your best features have been implemented in the game.
We do not know what CDPR have to show off, we have only seen pretty graphics, they are probably still tweaking game mechanics, motion capture, dialog system, enemy AI and who knows what else they have yet to reveal.
Be patient Danielson, more is coming most definitely.
They've created huge buzz with the likes of Game Informer, E3, VGX and the various interviews in between. They are constantly in the top 2 of most anticipated games, and one of the larger sites, can't remember the name, was so excited for it they had already put up a mock review of the game.
Marketing dollars are not unlimited, marketing has to be tactical, and it's best to have your marketing push closest to the release date, and demonstrate it in detail and in a big way, when all if not most of your best features have been implemented in the game.
We do not know what CDPR have to show off, we have only seen pretty graphics, they are probably still tweaking game mechanics, motion capture, dialog system, enemy AI and who knows what else they have yet to reveal.
Be patient Danielson, more is coming most definitely.
I think they are waiting for E3 to give the game a big push.
I honestly like CDP's methods.They choose what to show and when to show it.They are not shredding the game apart with spoilers at least.
Also, I am 100% sure the majority of people would have complained about E3 gameplay had it been released."This looks bad, that texture is poor, this animation is too raw, this VA sucks" etc
I honestly like CDP's methods.They choose what to show and when to show it.They are not shredding the game apart with spoilers at least.
Also, I am 100% sure the majority of people would have complained about E3 gameplay had it been released."This looks bad, that texture is poor, this animation is too raw, this VA sucks" etc
omniknight said:
Well I'm glad you work at Amazon corporate, please do tell me what goes on in your board meetings. Cdpr discredited the date, even it releases on that day it never had merit! Sep. 30 isn't too hard of a date to guess considering development timeframe. I posted in another thread how Amazon said GTA5 would announced on Dec. 24th. Hey surprisingly they were wrong! I love Amazon as a retailer but not as some all knowing, fortune predicting god!
It looked unpolished to me, not something I would want to show off to a public whose possibly majority would take it as finished.
gregski said:
I don't outright disagree. But I submit CDPR could have managed to hit some "critical mass" of public awareness of TW3 on the heels of their success at E3. Instead, they dropped the ball with the gaming public at large and now they have to start near square one again, without the benefit of the novelty that accompanies a first impression.gregski said:
Of course they did, what else could they do if they were not ready to officially announce or confirm the release date? And, if Sept 30th has no merit whatsoever, why have Amazon change it if they are still going to accept pre-orders? Why change one supposed placeholder date for another?Csszr said:
On one hand you have a lowly customer service rep of a retailer saying when the release date announcement for a game will be made by the publisher/developer. On the other you have the retailer at-large accepting pre-orders for said game with realistic sounding release date. Two completely different situations.Csszr said:
By the way, nice job making assertions that, when called out to provide examples, you completely sidestep and ignore. Way to win an arguement, champ.
What gives you that impression? As a layman, I use four easy and quick metrics:AgentBlue said:
- Official forum activity
- Subreddit activity
- GameFAQs board activity
- Google Trends
For number four, comparisons between keywords witcher, dragon age, and dark souls clearly shows TW is the least trending of the three, and has been over the past year. This is despite the huge gains made in June, where CDPR blew away the competition at E3, and then subsequently lost it due to their PR "strategy" of going almost completely silent for the next six months.
Feel free to play around with the search terms, but you'll find that on average, the trending is in DA:I's and (especially) DS2's favor relative to TW3.
Again, what are you using to come to the conclusion that TW3 is so hot right now? Granted, among the hardcore fans we definitely are chomping at the bit for the game. But for the gaming public as a whole relative to its competitors? Not so much.
It is called sarcasm, and you'll notice he was dishing it as well.GuyN said:
It is only logical that discussions about the game overall are fairly lacking, when you have two tidbits of footage and a died off stream of info there is just not that much to discuss. Even the topics and conversations about what you would like to see become barren at some point. I would argue that the new Dragon Age game is being handled much better. Clear footage has been shown and the devs post regular updates and that has paid of (which is all the more impressive considering the second game).
One could ask themselves wether Dragon Age is that much closer to being done or wether they actually have a sound PR plan.
One could ask themselves wether Dragon Age is that much closer to being done or wether they actually have a sound PR plan.