Game developers: under promise and overachieve!
If I would have to pick one life motto it would be ‘under promise and overachieve’. The concept is simple: You promise next to nothing and deliver a lot. If you tell someone ‘This will be done tomorrow’ and you get it done the day after tomorrow they will probably be pissed because you didn’t deliver. What if you had promised them it would be done late next week and you delivered it the day after tomorrow? They would be delighted! It’s as easy as that. Still, game developers can’t seem to grasp this easy concept.
I’m a gamer. So I check the news on game websites quite frequently. Everyday some news item pops up with a game developer (or executive) running his mouth claiming this game they are working on is the best we’ve seen yet. “You can do this and that and when you do this… this will blow your mind!” And it does! It’s truly amazing what they are promising, and in most cases the game does deliver. But the WOW-factor isn’t there any more. I already expected it to be in the game. I’ve already become accustomed to the fact that I’m able to do that kind of stuff. And most of the time it sounds great but when you’re playing the game it becomes boring pretty quickly. A great example is Assassins Creed. When the first gameplay movies were released every gamer was drooling. But when you play the actual game the features become repetitive and annoying. I understand there needs to be some kind of buzz about the game so that it can become a big seller on the day it’s released but please keep some features a secret. Let us gamers experience the WOW-factor when we are playing the game so we can tell all their friends. Leverage the power of word to mouth. Under promise and overachieve, I bet it will work out great.
