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How can sony set more realistic expectations before a state of play?

CamHostage

Member
Most have been good. I think the problem is 'third party' to most people means the likes of Capcom, SQEnix, Ubisoft etc.

The last one would have been at home if it was done in the same manner as the previous indie showcase: https://blog.playstation.com/2021/08/05/new-indie-reveals-and-updates-take-the-spotlight/

Trying to use technicalities after the event like indies are third parties miss the point. If you're going to do a mix (some big third party and some indie) then that will also be a SoP in my mind.

Except that four games in the recent State of Play were by "actual" Third Party publishers, not indies (...not sure where everybody thinks the technicality comes in; if you want to call them "Boxed Product Publishers", then okay, but if a game is not 1st Party, it is 3rd Party, with some technicalities over 2nd Party that people can talk about.) The most recent SoP had products from Square Enix, SNK, Nexon, and GungHo Online. Those companies aren't Capcom or Ubisoft (one of them is SQEnix), but they have been putting products onto store shelves internationally for a long time, they are publishers.


Also, if Sony had used State of Play to announce something big like the UE5-powered game Black Myth Wukong was coming to PS5, nobody would have complained that it's an "indie" game because it looks hardcore and advanced, even though it's an independently-produced (ie "indie") game by a first-time development studio currently without a publisher.

Ez8geatX0AIxdb7.jpg

(Lost Soul Aside, another "indie" coming to PS)

So is it the indie part people don't like, or do they just not like original games (although, again, Five Nights At Freddy's, Bugsnax, Star Ocean, KoF, KartRiders, all established brands to varying degrees) with quirky or cute ideas not in familiar "hardcore" genres? Would State of Play have been more acclaimed if Ubisoft was there... and they announced Valiant Hearts: The Great War 2? What if EA came and debuted the The Sims 5? Is it really the big names that would make the difference?
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They said this was a third party show but lets face it, it was mostly an indie show. Even the third party titles that were there looked lower budget than some of the indie titles on display.

They do set expectations with state of plays. IIRC, they announce whether or not games like Horizon and GOW will be on state of plays. For this one, they said it was all third party. But third party to PS owners means Final Fantasy and other AAA games. not the indie trash we ended up getting.

I think the bigger question is that the thirst of your average PS fan has even after half a dozen state of plays and that september conference. Sony has not had a truly great show this year and people just havent been satisfied. People want more than CG trailers, in engine teasers and last gen looking sequels in 2021. And those people havent gotten it so far this year. They are getting desperate, and these indie shows are not doing them any favors.
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
They said this was a third party show but lets face it, it was mostly an indie show. Even the third party titles that were there looked lower budget than some of the indie titles on display.

They do set expectations with state of plays. IIRC, they announce whether or not games like Horizon and GOW will be on state of plays. For this one, they said it was all third party. But third party to PS owners means Final Fantasy and other AAA games. not the indie trash we ended up getting.

I think the bigger question is that the thirst of your average PS fan has even after half a dozen state of plays and that september conference. Sony has not had a truly great show this year and people just havent been satisfied. People want more than CG trailers, in engine teasers and last gen looking sequels in 2021. And those people havent gotten it so far this year. They are getting desperate, and these indie shows are not doing them any favors.
I miss the e3’s and playstation experiences from a few years ago during the height of ps4 hype. They always had something awesome to announce. I recently re-watched their e3 2015 conference and man…i dont know if we will ever get something like that from them again
 

Lupin25

Member
I don’t know why anyone would expect an event full of huge reveals a mere month after the last big showcase lol.

Come on now.

Edit: We already know what’s up next on the palette for the upcoming year, anyway:

God of War: Ragnarök
GT7
Final Fantasy: Stranger of Paradise
Final Fantasy XVI
Horizon Forbidden West
Forspoken
GhostWire: Tokyo
Sifu
Little Devil Inside
Cyberpunk 2077 [Next-Gen]
Dying Light 2 [Next-Gen]

That’s more than enough to have shown for the time being, considering they’re not released yet.
 
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RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
I wouldn't worry about whats happening inside the mind of adults without adult faculties OP. If you don't have good critical thinking skills and can't deal with disappointment then its hard to fix that at this late of a stage in life.

I'd prefer to keep it as is so I can be surprised, I don't want everthing to be laid out in a boring spreadsheet because morons exist.
Couldnt have said it better
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
They said this was a third party show but lets face it, it was mostly an indie show. Even the third party titles that were there looked lower budget than some of the indie titles on display.
Thats the thing. Expectations.

If Sony says a SoP show is "third party" they are actually correct if it's indie games. It can be 99 cent flash game quality, but they are technically telling the truth.

Problem is, gamers have expectations and when someone says they'll be a third party show, nobody expects it to be half an hour of $5 kinds of indie games.

That would be like Nintendo, MS or Sony saying come join us for our E3 show in LA. We got 40 games on stage to show you. People expect it to be a combo of first, third, big budget and an indie montage. A general mix. Nobody would expect it to be solely all XBLA/PSN $10 kinds of games. Even though they are correct if it was. They never said big budget games.

As for any Xbox, Nintendo or PS show being 100% low end indie games. That's an expectation zero gamers would expect even though Sony did vaguely say it's third party games.

If a sports team says Yankee players will show up at special event downtown so come join in, and you get there you'd expect some kind of mix of star players and bench players. Nobody would expect all 40 players to show up. But at least some decent faces. It would be stupid if you get there and there's only 3 players and it's minor league players called up the past two weeks.
 
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Kuranghi

Member
This reminds me of when I close a sale on a TV and they love it and can't wait to buy it and then I tell them someone else bought the last unit of takeaway stock while we were talking and it'll have to be delivered (free of charge) and it'll take like two days to arrive. Often its fine but every once in a while their face drops and they go "oh well, what do you have I can take away today though?", even though its literally the best TV for them at the price they want to pay.

They don't have any need to buy it right then, the current one isn't broken, they don't have screaming kids to deal with, its just an upgrade to a current set that works fine and the only reason they change to another set is because they can't take it away with them right then, its fucking mental to me. Of course those people never ever ever ever buy the next set up, only the next set down (or worse), so obviously they are going to be disappointed because the cheaper sets don't have all the features I sold them on.

So the motion is blurry, the contrast is low, blacks aren't black and highlights are grey/dull compared to the higher end model. The one I told them to buy is solid, with metal and feels like a tank but the one they bought sounds like a bin made for hot coals when you knock on the back of it :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Then they'll come back in and see me 3 months from then and tell me the set they bought is disappointing for all the reasons listed above and they wish they'd bought the better one. Me after they tell me that:

Jennifer Lopez Reaction GIF
Disappointed King Of The Hill GIF
GIF by NBA

Sad Its Over GIF by Star Wars
true detective insult GIF


All because they couldn't wait two fucking days for a £1500 purchase to arrive, ie "I want it nowwwwwww" *stamps feet*:

Mel Brooks Morons GIF
 
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Melfice7

Member
By being specific on whats coming or in the very least, list the developers that are gonna be in the SoP
 

CamHostage

Member
I don’t know why anyone would expect an event full of huge reveals a mere month after the last big showcase lol.

Come on now.

...Also, after months and months and MONTHS of this "Summer Gaming" announcement season where every gaming company announced their biggest products for the next fiscal year or so. (That Summer slew of showcases included E3, where most of the mainstream 3rd Party publishers already brought out their big titles, plus GamesCom in August and TGS in September, and we all remember how well-received each of those big events were...)

We know all the big games that are coming out in the near future, but we want to will into existence even more of them, and we want every live stream to deliver on our desires for products we have imagined to exist somewhere beyond our knowledge.

These events, they're just opportunities to present products to consumers. These are products that are up for promotional exposure, having not been a part of the previous events in the last few months (and not locked into debuts at TGAs or PSX or whatever other event is coming up,) and without a plan for their own social network exposure (which is the most common way to showcase a title these days, as publishers want to control their messaging as well as possible.) I do think Sony could do a better job of messaging (although the promotion for State of Play as it is often is quite subdued, so I'm not sure why people are blaming Sony for riling them all up when the messaging is as base-level as it did here: "This time out, we’ll be focusing on announcements and updates for upcoming third-party releases headed to PS5 and PS4. The show is looking to be ~20 minutes or so, and will share new looks at previously announced games, plus a few reveals from our partners around the world. ") I think the idea of listing publishers or developers ahead of time would be helpful (or let developers promote on social channels when their own titles are part of a stream.) But there's just no pleasing everybody, and the marketing department has a job to do.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I miss the e3’s and playstation experiences from a few years ago during the height of ps4 hype. They always had something awesome to announce. I recently re-watched their e3 2015 conference and man…i dont know if we will ever get something like that from them again
E3 2016 and 2015 were once in a lifetime conferences. I dont expect that every year, but I expect something on the caliber of 2013, 2014, 2017 and even 2018. 2018 is trashed a lot, but they showed 4 long and incredible gameplay demos and still managed to fill in reveals for RE2, Control, and several other AAA games.

This bizarre focus on having state of plays featuring games no one wants to play needs to end. People dont associate PS with indies or B games. People tune in to watch AAA games like Final Fantasy, Uncharted and GoW. Sony needs to understand that and go back to having E3s. Have one 2 hour conference with lots of long gameplay demos and new reveals. No one wants to see deathloop in ten different state of plays.

I think the bigger problem no one seems to want to talk about is that they simply dont have that many games to show anymore. Their games take 5-7 years to make nowadays and just like Rockstar their first party projects are likely in development hell. Leaving them with nothing to show, but CG and ingame trailers from their only productive first party studio, Insomniac. Spderman is a holiday 2023 title, Wolverine didnt even get that 2023 date. That means they went to insomniac who have just released two games to fill that show with stuff. Because clearly ND, Sucker Punch, Bend and GG had nothing to show. SSM showed up with a last gen game after 3 and a half years. PD and GG took a year longer and did the same. There are no other teams hiding in secret working on some next gen game that will be released next year otherwise they wouldve shown that instead of spiderman and wolverine which are 2-3 years away.

So the way I look at it, the state of plays and these boring conferences are full of random shit no one gives a shit about because thats all they have atm. The industry is in a really precarious place where games are taking longer than ever to make, and devs continue to make games bigger and bigger exacerbating the problem. This leaves Sony execs with the unenviable task of advertising their console with really nothing to show. So they turn to third parties and buy exclusives no one wants (deathloop, ghostwire tokyo) and indie games to fill in the gap left by their premiere studios. Both Sony and MS have realized that this and that partially explains why they have both gone out and bought so many new studios. Their existing studios just arent making games fast enough anymore.

If I was Jim Ryan, id ask Herman Hurst why Horizon 2 took 5 years to make. Because one of their 6 premiere studios basically went MIA for 4 out of 5 E3s. Im sure they arent sitting on their ass so they arent lazy, but they arent very productive if they spend 5 years making one last gen game. It left Jim Ryan having to mislead even though the decision to make it last gen was likely made before he took over PS in 2019. If I were Jim Ryan i would be pretty pissed about having to cancel E3s and being forced to make these god awful State of plays while his predecessors got to shine on the stage with thousands of adoring fans cheering him on.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
E3 2016 and 2015 were once in a lifetime conferences. I dont expect that every year, but I expect something on the caliber of 2013, 2014, 2017 and even 2018. 2018 is trashed a lot, but they showed 4 long and incredible gameplay demos and still managed to fill in reveals for RE2, Control, and several other AAA games.

This bizarre focus on having state of plays featuring games no one wants to play needs to end. People dont associate PS with indies or B games. People tune in to watch AAA games like Final Fantasy, Uncharted and GoW. Sony needs to understand that and go back to having E3s. Have one 2 hour conference with lots of long gameplay demos and new reveals. No one wants to see deathloop in ten different state of plays.

I think the bigger problem no one seems to want to talk about is that they simply dont have that many games to show anymore. Their games take 5-7 years to make nowadays and just like Rockstar their first party projects are likely in development hell. Leaving them with nothing to show, but CG and ingame trailers from their only productive first party studio, Insomniac. Spderman is a holiday 2023 title, Wolverine didnt even get that 2023 date. That means they went to insomniac who have just released two games to fill that show with stuff. Because clearly ND, Sucker Punch, Bend and GG had nothing to show. SSM showed up with a last gen game after 3 and a half years. PD and GG took a year longer and did the same. There are no other teams hiding in secret working on some next gen game that will be released next year otherwise they wouldve shown that instead of spiderman and wolverine which are 2-3 years away.

So the way I look at it, the state of plays and these boring conferences are full of random shit no one gives a shit about because thats all they have atm. The industry is in a really precarious place where games are taking longer than ever to make, and devs continue to make games bigger and bigger exacerbating the problem. This leaves Sony execs with the unenviable task of advertising their console with really nothing to show. So they turn to third parties and buy exclusives no one wants (deathloop, ghostwire tokyo) and indie games to fill in the gap left by their premiere studios. Both Sony and MS have realized that this and that partially explains why they have both gone out and bought so many new studios. Their existing studios just arent making games fast enough anymore.

If I was Jim Ryan, id ask Herman Hurst why Horizon 2 took 5 years to make. Because one of their 6 premiere studios basically went MIA for 4 out of 5 E3s. Im sure they arent sitting on their ass so they arent lazy, but they arent very productive if they spend 5 years making one last gen game. It left Jim Ryan having to mislead even though the decision to make it last gen was likely made before he took over PS in 2019. If I were Jim Ryan i would be pretty pissed about having to cancel E3s and being forced to make these god awful State of plays while his predecessors got to shine on the stage with thousands of adoring fans cheering him on.
I totally agree with your point about bigger games now taking longer, so console makers and big third party studios cant milk a game a million times on video.

But with all the games coming out, there's got to be a lot more decent A, AA or higher quality indies. It's not like the games industry is 5 year dev time AAA games and then what Sony showed with nothing in between.

When I check the MS store to see what direct to store games get released, there's always some random single A kinds of games with some grit released. Those $20-30 kinds of games NOBODY knows about because the studio is too small to market their game or Sony, MS, Nintendo dont want to promote it.

Sony's show some reason really skewed to the lower end of indie/small budget games.
 
Easy...

They should only do state of plays that focus on specific games like what they did with TLOU2 and GOT last year and use only the PS showcases to showcase multiple games plus the first party games.

The issue with the last show was it did not have a good balance of games, When they do live events mostly casuals will watch and they don't read into the details online to understand what will be shown which is why it makes zero sense to waste time showing games most people don't want to see. The smaller titles could still be shown in the bigger showcases to balance everything out.

So IMO,

State of Play = Specific game previews and those games should be announced before the event

PS Showcase = Show everything and hold this event a couple times a year especially if they don't plan to be at E3

If they do that less people will feel disappointed
 
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GametimeUK

Member
Just don't do shit state of plays. Especially when the fanbase is starving for new games. They should keep the name state of play for great presentations and use a different name for the god awful showings like the last one.
 

JaksGhost

Member
Why do ya'll want them to do shit that they've never done before in their 25 + plus years of operating because YOU can't temper your own expectations as an adult. Also it's even more funny to see some of the people starting these damn hype trains complaining. You are the problem. It's time we unpack that.
 
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