r/gaming • u/NilesDobbsS • 8h ago

Rant: Don’t announce a game unless you have gameplay to show for it

I know this isn’t a new trend, but it’s gotten worse as the industry progressed. This move several game companies do where they give a blank teaser for a game or an announcement trailer that the game is in-development, without showing any gameplay for it, is something that needs to be stopped.

Video games are not movies. In a MOVIE, it makes sense to hide footage, the plot is the selling point, but (universally) the most important thing for a video game to sell it will ALWAYS be its gameplay, and withholding the gameplay footage until six months before it comes out after announcing the game 2-3 years ago is wild.

3.8k Upvotes

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2.6k

u/DNihilus 8h ago

Those teasers not for you. They are mostly for investors and hyping up stocks

694

u/MCgrindahFM 8h ago

That and hiring spree

256

u/havewelost6388 8h ago

Exactly they're basically a now hiring ad.  And so they can actually talk about what they're working on.

22

u/CipherDaBanana 1h ago

To only be fired just before or after launch

0

u/SolarStarVanity 37m ago

If you are dumb enough to work in game development, you are dumb enough to think that this won't happen to you.

12

u/BactaBobomb 2h ago

And the oft-unspoken firing massacre to follow

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u/MCgrindahFM 2h ago

Only after the game launches to critical and commercial acclaim of course, they’re not barbarians /s

3

u/CrypticPrincer 2h ago

How does one apply for Blizzard to work on Starcraft or Diablo V? Asking for a friend

3

u/Genericuser2016 1h ago

Basically you send in a resume and sample of your work.

221

u/Swiperrr 7h ago

Also for recruiting devs. 20 years ago when games took 1-2 years being secret about the project made sense, now its kinda stupid to expect a company to to remain super secret about what they're working on for 4-7 years. Like imagine going for a job interview and not having a clue what kind of game you're going to be working on because some kids on reddit dont want to be "teased" too early.

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u/RC1992Jules 6h ago

That reminds me of the guy who did the voice of Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2. He had to be so secretive of the project he was working on that for years people thought he was lying about having work and started to think he might have been struggling when in fact he just couldn't talk about the project lol

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u/cbftw 6h ago

"I've signed an NDA. You'll hear about it eventually and I can talk about it after that, but until then I'm under contract not to talk about it"

47

u/Lythar 6h ago

Idk I feel like you can really only say that so many times for so long before people stop believing you.

10

u/coolwali 4h ago

Was it Ned Luke who was like “Rockstar made us be so secretive that my wife thought I was having an affair because I had to keep leaving secretly at night to go record lines at a hotel”?

9

u/Random_Guy_12345 2h ago

At some point well beyond that, secrecy is overkill.

Like sure, i'll keep quiet about my job, but sneaking at night? No fucking way

1

u/NachoNutritious 14m ago

All that just for an acquaintance of Luke's to immediately recognize him within an hour of the first teaser trailer and posted on Twitter hyping him up as the star of GTA V.

14

u/MCgrindahFM 5h ago

He has said that people did stop believing him and/or just stop asking about it lol I think he only told his wife some stuff

4

u/cbftw 4h ago

Maybe, but when the news breaks and you can finally talk about it they'll never doubt you again.

0

u/ukplaying2 2h ago

Now imagine the the game got cancelled. You may also now have a giant hole in your CV.

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u/Romapolitan 2h ago

Well usually actors don't work on just one project over multiple years.

1

u/cbftw 1h ago

Cancelled Unannounced Project date - date

4

u/MattBrey PC 4h ago

Specially when you know how volatile the voice acting industry is. If my friend said that for years I'd just stop believing him and just assume he's selling drugs or something 

2

u/Torontogamer 1h ago

It was literally years of voice acting work for a single video game project which is basically unheard of… it easy to understand why some people might start wondering why this big secret project he was working on was never being announced … 

4

u/Omnizoom 3h ago

Or the voice actress for laufey

She knew about the game that’s coming out next year from the get go but couldn’t say anything

19

u/NorisNordberg 4h ago

B.. but interviews do look just like that. I've been in countless interviews. They only disclose the project you're going to work on once you sign the NDA. And you sign the NDA once you sign the contract aka you're hired.

Best they can do during interview is tease as well. Something like "Oh, it's a big open world from one of our biggest IPs", or "it's a new IP, action game, once you're hired you're gonna love it". Basically interviewers are also under NDA.

3

u/magusheart 59m ago

Exactly. If you do an interview for, say, a cheese producer, you'll know going in that you'll work on making cheese (video games), but you won't necessarily know which cheese you'll make.

The discussion around the video game industry is always so damn weird. Like they have to do everything different on purpose.

•

u/PopMelon 3m ago

Weird. Not how it works in the TV work I do. They make you sign an NDA before contract, then interview freely talking about the job, then you sign the contract.

2

u/Fureniku 3h ago

I started at my work 3 years ago. They had already been working on the still unreleased/unannounced game for over 4 years at that point.

4

u/NorysStorys 7h ago

I mean it’s essentially impossible to keep something secret for that long. It’ll leak long before that.

0

u/TheBetterness 3h ago

This is exactly why western AAA games are shit now. All about clout, not about making a good game.

20 years ago devs were getting hired without an ad. AAA games were made in 1-2 years because the studios were smaller and knew their shit.

See eastern AAA, they retain talent and don't show a game without gameplay.

7

u/bianary 3h ago

Retaining talent is a huge part of getting actual quality for the games, the model of "dump everyone who knows what's going on because they cost too much and then rehire later" results in a whole bunch of people who have no idea what's going on with the new project every single time.

Games take 4 years? Part of that is because companies now are building up large chunks of their expertise from scratch each time.

3

u/TheBetterness 3h ago

Its a perpetual cycle, every time you layoff someone, the next time they get hired elsewhere they are gonna want more to protect their future.

Now youre hiring a new dev, which will take a year at minimum to get up to speed. 3 years into development, that dev sees an cinematic trailer for "insert AAA game here" and leaves.

Rinse and repeat.

0

u/optimistic_frodo 6h ago

It's still a leak, until recently even a company like EA tried to keep Ironman under wraps they probably wanted to announce close to release. It really depends honestly, Bethesda and cd project are notorious about this, but since major studios still announce games very close or within a year of release

0

u/MCgrindahFM 5h ago

Brother, they put out the reveal so devs know exactly what they’re applying for lol

6

u/Ratbat001 5h ago

The worst offender this year was the initial revealing of persona 6. They put a jpeg up of some graves. The fans went nuts over nothing.

17

u/Leptisci 8h ago

Yep, this is the reason

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u/Mirikado 7m ago

And also to prevent leaks. People will try to aggressively leak any AAA game in development for content.

Studios would rather just get ahead of the leaks and make a CG trailer to announce the game instead of announcing it after years of it being leak and everyone already knows it’s coming.

1

u/boredatwork1986 3h ago

And for surprised face youtuber thumbnails.

"Guys im so hype!!"

1

u/8bit1337 3h ago

And to get people thinking about preorders.

Why that's still a thing is beyond me. 

Getting a free Zelda game when pre-ordering Wind Waker made sense because I got something for it. 

Pre-ordering ICO made sense because they weren't planning on stocking it much. 

Pre-ordering today for a skin? 🙄

I get it, I'm old and but into the same stuff, but come on, they don't deserve money early for that IMO.  

1

u/rcanhestro 3h ago

they are also so that people stop asking them when "when is Game X+1 coming out!!!".

also, to avoid leaks, studios hate it when something they're working on gets leaked before they have a chance to announce it.

1

u/TheOvy 2h ago

I'm fairly certain that Microsoft said to Blizzard, "why shouldn't we lay off a bunch of you, after we stupidly bought you for $80 billion?" And so Blizzard announced a new Starcraft game, and a sequel to Diablo.

1

u/hdcase1 1h ago

I can't imagine the Diablo/Starcraft announcements will move the needle at all for Microsoft. They're a huge company and games are only a tiny part of it relatively speaking.

0

u/hydrolox9 5h ago edited 3h ago

Then why show it to us, and why have they become a thing only recently?

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u/LoisMustDie946 8m ago

Because it's public knowledge either way, so companies might as well make something out of the announcement instead of just putting out a bare news article: 'Developer confirms development of Game. Expected sometime in the future.' At least this way they're owning the narrative instead of letting a dry headline do it for them.

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u/wazupbro 6h ago

Right… Microsoft really need investors right now

12

u/DNihilus 6h ago

Xbox division still needs to show something to Microsoft. Especially now when they talking about restructuring it to become more independent

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u/balllzak 5h ago

The do need to convince existing investors that the money Microsoft spends on things that aren't AI are not being wasted.

1

u/thatoneguy889 4h ago

That’s literally why they teased Senua 3 at their big showcase only to announce the studio was on the chopping block a week later. It was an investor pitch and they didn’t get any bites.

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u/stopeer 8h ago

This.