It’s always interesting to see what people will resonate with at a showcase from a major publisher. Oftentimes, the publisher will try to push a specific title to gamers because they think that THIS is what they’ll love the most and that THIS is what they should play when it comes out. However, at the PlayStation State of Play event yesterday, that seemed to backfire quite heavily on them. You see, the first game they showed off was a 5v5 “hero shooter” called Concord, and they spent 11 minutes showing it off. Astro Bot ended the event with a much smaller trailer, and it’s the one that everyone is talking about and loving.
Would you like proof of that? As noted by VGC, the official trailer for Astro Bot, which is the next entry in the series that has been on both the PS5 via a “tech demo” and the PlayStation VR, has a 99% positive rating across all votes. In context, that means it has over 23K in upvotes, with just above 200 downvotes. That’s a rather small amount of dislikes overall.
However, when it came to Concord, which got two different trailers via the cinematic trailer and the gameplay trailer, players weren’t as receptive to either. The gameplay trailer only got 18% positive rating via its votes, with 2,700 people liking it and 12K people disliking it, and the cinematic trailer only barely got about that with a 23% rating.
So, why do they love the adorable robot game more than the 5v5 shooter? The simple answer is that one looks fresh and fun, while the other has absolutely been done before many times over. The game featuring Astro Bot looked vibrant and had many different gameplay mechanics that highlighted the rich worlds and galaxies he would visit. The creativity was on display from start to finish, and it showed.
As for the other title, the cinematic trailer and gameplay trailer clashed in style and tone. The cinematic trailer painted one version of the game, one that people were interested in for a bit, and then, when it was revealed to be ANOTHER 5v5 shooter…they were turned off. They preferred it when it sounded like a narrative experience with a unique crew of characters that would take on daring jobs.
Instead, we’re getting a game that wreaks of being “yet another Overwatch clone,” and players aren’t interested in that.
So let that be a lesson to all publishers; sometimes…you just need to make a simple and fun game with an adorable mascot.
