Steve: I think Rockstar gets pretty close, but not quite. With San Andreas there was like 6 months of monthly previews each focusing on different sets of features or locations. In terms of previews quantity it’s not at all what I would like, e.g. I don’t want to have seen detailed guides for each of the game’s major cities before release. But I agree that Rockstar does the timing well. They put out an early teaser video, then don’t do any rushed or smoke-and-mirrors demos for trade shows, and simply wait until fairly close to release for the full previews.

I think part of the reason may be that game design is young enough that people still fuck it up on a regular basis–gamers want to be reassured that games are not even necessarily great, but just competently made on a basic level.

In films, in all but the most disastrous of cases, you never get, for example, a camera simply not pointing at thing the director intended. In the young, interactive medium of games, however, we get end results like that all the time.

There are plenty of terrible films–most of the ones that take in the big bucks are shit. These tend be bad for creative or artistic reasons, though, not for low-level technical reasons. In games, people mess up the absolute fundamentals on the time–and, on top of that, most games are ALSO creatively and artistically derivative or just plan dumb.

Previews help to let people know what’s promising early on. Of course, previews tend to be universally neutral or positive, but it is clearly possible to infer an adjusted scale from that. It’s sort of like how games are mostly reviewed on a 6-10 scale–6 ends up being bad, even if it’s not supposed to be.

Anyway, I’m not defending the system. Again, I agree with you. I dearly wish there was less focus on obsessive preview coverage and I could spend more of my time and effort with more interesting coverage. For example, I really wish games were not so disposable. I would love to do reviews but it is not feasible for us to get them done right at release, and economically if you’re doing this for a living there isn’t much point putting up late reviews. Most people want a number the minute a game comes out, or even a week or two beforehand.

So yeah, I’m just describing the system, not trying to justify it.

Regardless. I was playing the first Starcraft and it occurred to me how wonderfully well it’s paced in revealing all its secrets at you, specifically the units of the races. You gradually get to meet them. Great build of tension and excitement there.

So I’m kinda sceptic whether or not I should follow its sequel’s site, because Blizzard is slowly going to reveal all the units and stuff that’s in the game to us over the course of the 50 years (an approximation) it’ll take until it ships. It’s already quarterway through the Protoss. I think this would take away from the excitement when you play the game for the first time, so I think I’m going to install a nice little media blackout on Starcraft 2.

Of course, this isn’t actually ‘behind the scenes’… this is about finished assets and stuff from the game, but still. I understand why Blizz would want to do it for hyping purposes, but as a games I don’t think it would improve the enjoyment of the game. It WOULD improve the riding of the hype.

Also, Marek, if your blog refuses to post this just like it did all the other times, I’m putting it on the Thumb. That’ll serve you right!

Here’s what I think: if you can release concept art, cut features, ideas that didn’t make it into the game, etc, after the game, that’d be great because other people can learn a lot from it. Like The Document of MGS2. To draw something parallel to the film industry (and I disagree partly with Mr. Sawyn on this), something like the “Making Of” Psycho or Taxi Driver can be really useful, because in those you get stuff like “Why did Hitchcock not like this shot? It’s filmed that way” or like “The idea behind this scene in the film was to put you in Trevor’s shoes” and you can apply to that to your ideas on games. Films know a lot more about themselves than games do. True, there is bullshit out there (”Making of Red Dragon“) but you also get some pretty cool insight sometimes (The Lord of the Rings extended cuts … the footage was shot on location and everything the people say is very, very detailed and is very, very genuine, so there’s very little bullshit involved there).

But yeah, there’s always the danger of releasing too much information before a game is finished. If you watch all of the MGS3 trailers you’ll end up disappointed. I learned my lesson from that and so with Psychonauts I didn’t even see the trailer (although sadly the game was snatched away from me before I managed to play for more than an hour - *sniff*). Also previews give a pretty wrong impression about a game. Just look at Gamespot here “drooling all over our shoes” when “it’s entirely possible MGS4 doesn’t even exist outside of Kojima’s head at this point” (Kojima = MGS creator/designer/writer).

I hate Gamespot. They have enough power to change the industry and then they go ahead and publish something as stupid as Xbox 360 Graphics VS PS3 Graphics.

But I digress: Basically, commentary and behind-the-scenery that is (a) good, and (b) is shown after the game is released is good, otherwise it’s pointless and just a marketing ploy.

But you and I are game designers ourselves. We have a professional interest in games. Especially at a time when the medium is evolving very rapidly. We also have enough to knowledge to be able to seperate the behind-the-scenes information from the actual game and still enjoy it.

But does this apply to the audience at large? I think not. I think the marketing surrounding a game should be part of the fiction it is selling. That will be much more enjoyable.

On the other hand, how many “normal” people visit the sites that you and I do, the ones that give you insight in the making of these games? Perhaps there’s a larger percentage of geeks like us in the hardcore audience, but as the market is shifting to more mainstream, less and less people will go around trying to find these things.