Recently, the YouTube channel SlitherineGames presented a new episode of The Geek Recipe show. It featured Pete Hines, former Vice President of PR and Marketing at Bethesda.
During the conversation, they touched upon the topic of managing expectations when promoting games. Hines noted that in the case of PC users, it was necessary to pay attention to demonstrating the game's customization options, while console players are not particularly interested in such things:
[...] Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo users don't really care about all these settings and stuff, but PC gamers are very interested in it. Sometimes it came down to simply: "Hey, next time at the game presentation, it's worth talking about the settings and features of the PC version and letting the audience know how they can customize the game on their platform to get the best experience."
Pete Hines explained that sometimes the most difficult task in managing expectations is to understand "what parts of the game can be talked about in a way that sounds authentic and grabs people, and that these things don't change or disappear during development":
For example, it seems like it was with Oblivion. We had a system called Radiant AI. It was part of the evolution from Morrowind to Oblivion: characters in the game were supposed to have a schedule. They don't just stand there like talking kiosks until you approach them. The idea was that they would move around the world, go to sleep, get up, and go to work. And we had this Radiant AI idea that was supposed to make the game completely different. But in reality, when you play, it doesn't feel that way. It sounds cool on paper, but not in the game itself. It's all about managing expectations: "I expect X, but I get Y."
The marketer noted that if the task was to promote an already finished game, there would be no problems. However, the realities of the industry are such that it is necessary to advertise a game that is being developed, i.e., something can change during the advertising campaign:
The version in my head is always much better than the one in my hands, and that's happened to us time and time again. That's why we have to redo combat systems several times or throw out ideas altogether. And managing expectations in our industry is especially difficult because of this. If we waited until the game was completely ready and then promoted it, there would be no problems. The game is ready - we can say anything. It's finished. However, no one allows us to do that.
[...] I think this is one of the challenges of being a marketer - balancing on the edge between wanting to spark interest and striving not to make too many promises that will not be fulfilled in the end. The worst thing a marketer can do is raise expectations for a product so high that it doesn't live up to them.