In today’s gaming world, the hype leading up to a launch is no small event. Take for example Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon – it’s the middle of the summer of 2016 and Nintendo fans are already digging into product details hoping to be the first to have a sneak peek into the new Pokemon offerings. The media attention is growing thanks in part to the global Pokemon Go craze and millennials are nostalgic for their days spent with Pokemon in the ’90s. This launch will undoubtedly be massive come November, but will the game live up to its pre-launch hype?
To get a better idea of how actual games compare to the hype leading up to their launches, we recently polled 2,500 Softonic users to learn more about their real-life experiences with new games compared to the hype promised leading up to the launch.
Marketing efforts are definitely noticed – especially within the gaming community – and play a key role in initial sales on launch day. At least half of gamers purchase and play newly released video games as a result of seeing promotional materials, including YouTube – the preferred promotional medium by 60% of gamers. The hype is built way before the launch, and one would assume, providing ample time for developers to correct glitches and visual issues prior to the big day. We found, though, glitches are more common than not.
No matter how many man hours go into testing each element of the game, 63% of gamers have bought and played a newly released title that was defective and 70% of gamers have purchased games that require patches to fix glitches. Looking closer at the issues, 57% of gamers said they’ve bought newly released games that had worse graphics than advertised and 54% of gamers found that they’ve bought newly released games that didn’t include features shown in promotional materials.
Talk about a bait and switch – believing all of the hype for a game only to be disappointed in the actual product. We’ll have to wait until November to see how the new Pokemon games will fare, but fingers crossed that its developers and marketers have solved all major issues prior to launch day.