Gamers Are Stuck in a Web of AAA Lies — Here is the Only Way Out

The internet’s reception of No Man’s Sky has been less than stellar since it released two weeks ago. Millions of gamers got suckered into a “Peter Molyneux affair” once again, this time with the help of Sony Interactive Entertainment. With detailed analysis of just how much was missing from the final release, gamers have a right to feel deceived.

This definitely isn’t the first time an over-hyped game has been such a let-down in critical ways. Within the past five years, companies like 343 Industries, Bethesda, Ubisoft and Gearbox have been caught up in significant consumer backlash over the quality of their games. Like some sort of abusive relationship with game publishers, the current generation of gamers are rewarding companies with their hard-earned money in exchange for empty promises, buggy launches and appallingly half-finished products.

If gamers don’t want to be lied to anymore, there are two simple ways to fight against the deceptive trailers and advertising:

1. Stop pre-ordering. Just stop it.

Seriously, the extra chunks of plastic aren’t worth it. When a publisher is able to fall back on the amount of money they’ve already acquired through pre-orders, it gives them the incentive to pressure developers into cutting corners. Developers are being required to meet release dates that are completely unrealistic for the scope of AAA games, but these hard dates must be met in order to please gamers who have pre-ordered. This cyclical problem is all because of pre-orders. The hype for being the first to experience a game is a huge let down anyway when the two year development cycle ended up rushing out a shoddy game.

2. Demand a playable demo or a beta before release.

You can’t trust how pretty it is. You can’t trust what developers with no major release history are promising. You can’t even trust the live previews sometimes. You have to be able to sit down, install the thing, and actually play a bit of it. For PC gamers, this means confirming the compatibility of their hardware and subsequently getting the promises from developers to fix issues before official release. For console gamers, this means being able to see exactly what frame rate the console can handle the game at, along with other graphics settings that might change when compared to the max settings trailers. More importantly, it gives gamers the chance to see if the game they’re committing $60 to is any fun.

As long as gamers keep accepting blockbuster movie trailers as proof of a title’s quality, the actual gameplay experiences of this generation will fail to improve and evolve. Retailers like Gamestop, Amazon and Best Buy count on pressuring gamers to blindly pre-order because it’s easy money for them, regardless of the end product. Publishers will hold press embargoes right up until launch day so streamers and reviewers can’t tell us their honest opinions. The hype machine is crafted explicitly to dupe gamers into committing to a product before truly experiencing it, washing over the media with an “in or out” mentality.

Gamers have to realize that they hold all the power they need to change things right in their wallet. As long as the pre-order and launch profit of a AAA title is greater than the amount lost from consumer backlash, history will continue to keep repeating itself.