One of the worst things in this industry is the endless onslaught of hype. We are constantly telling you what to look out for next, where to throw your money–despite, what I suspect, the average user's inability to keep up–and sometimes, a well marketed game turns out to be mediocre and though reviews may set the record straight, I fear that by that point, damage has already been done.
Valve works a little differently (surprise!). They don't hit us over the head with how good their games are going to be, and the marketing is typically minimal in comparison to development studios which produce, say, weekly video updates telling us about the smallest thing in their upcoming game. Speaking in an interview with VG247, Valve's Chet Faliszek spoke to this:
Telling people a game is great will sell one extra copy. Letting people play the game – Left 4 Dead is a good example – is much better. All of our pre-release stuff is designed to just let people play it.
We just let the game speak for itself because the internet has made this thing where, you can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes any more. They’re going to know you’re hyping.
But when a game does really well at pre-release, they’re going to know that you’re not just talking a bunch of PR crap. I mean, the Left 4 Dead series has now sold over 12 million copies.
That’s amazingly cool, and that wasn’t because I was out there like, ‘Oh my god! This game is amazing! Buy it!’ Seeing Counter-Strike be the number one PSN title was awesome, and you know it’s just because of people reacting to the game.
Makes sense to me. Kind of wish more places took this approach. The interview can be read in full here, and it speaks in detail about Valve's practices and future plans–worthwhile stuff!
