As some of you people might remember John Romero did a “great hype ad” for his game Daikatana in 1997 (3 years before release). Personally I think that the game wasn’t that bad as many claimed it to be, but it was rated this way because John had hyped Daikatana to be the best game ever, … and it wasn’t. So it was a “text-book” case of  “do not hype your game unless it’s great”. Although it must be one of the most sold - “lowest scored” games of all time since it sold well over 200 000 copies the first year.

So while “over hyping” isn’t good, it seamed to work here. Though today many of the games have to “hype” their” game becasue if they don’t, no one will hear about the game at all. That’s why it’s really important for games today to have a USP (Unique Selling Points). It means that the game has to have a unique feature that no other game has. USP can be Max Paynes “bullit time” (one of my favourit USP), it’s a feature that you “push” in the marketing and that you hope that all the gamers will love.

I made this “art” (Llaknel about to make you his b****) some month ago and thought that I post it as a joke/tribute to John.

Tags: bullit time, Daikatana, Databox, hype Max Payne, john Romero, Penalty of Heroes, sell, Unique selling point, USP

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 8:17 am and is filed under art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.