There’s something about gamers, maybe it’s the competitive nature, but many of them pick contrasting sides as if they were betting on a horse. Xbox 360 versus PS3, DS versus PSP, Eidos versus Ubisoft, WoW versus every other MMO. They create animosity between themselves and the other side. Us versus Them.

So when a game is about to hit the shelves, if you say anything positive at all, someone else comes along and fights you over it like a scrap of food among starving rats. Half of the gamers are excited and the other half are predicting doom and gloom. You can smell the desire they have to see something fail, or reach great glorious success. Not for its own sake, but so they can feel proud they predicted it.

Even worse are the conspiracy theorists. Every little activity from the developer, every little marketing choice is seen as an indication of the state of the game. Nevermind that it’s all the same usual marketing we’ve always seen. These theorists will pick out details, waggle their fingers and exclaim that the devs are up to something, the devs are keeping big secrets. They’re sending encoded messages through their marketing dept!

Let me tell you something about marketing departments: They’re the most removed guys from the game. Testers know what’s up more than these guys. The marketing dept spends its time trying to get the game a big splash on opening day. They don’t compensate or even capitalize on the state of the game, they just sell. That’s all there is to it folks. No smoke and mirrors.

If you think something is a sign of confidence, a sign of weakness, or a sign of doom and gloom, seriously, stop trying to read tea leaves. You’ll know soon enough once the game has been out for 6 months or so. I’m all for info on upcoming games, but some people are trying too hard to discover the big scoop out of little or no source info.

Oh hell yeah, I’ve fallen for this stuff too, I’m a victim of hype as much as anyone else.

Just a few days ago I posted about NDAs and how I feel the core crowd of this Blogosphere should be shown more respect. This is the polar opposite. Making a metagame out of picking winners and trashing losers isn’t the way to earn respect. It just makes you look like an excitable consumer, ripe for the next bit of marketing bait.

Take off the tin foil hats.

Get off the FUD wagon.

… I see you trying to sneak onto that other wagon, the fanbois one… Don’t do it… Self-restraint… Yeah, that’s it. Okay now go play a game you enjoy. You’ll feel better about everything tomorrow I bet. =P

In the Dark

I have no idea what the game is like. That’s more unusual, but I agree with it. It’s not so agreeable to others: Keen is feeling uneasy. I understand that, gamers are accustomed to being informed and bloggers even moreso. Being in the dark makes us uneasy.

The games industry loves pre-release hype, it’s a long standing tradition that goes back to the earliest game magazines. Talking about the future is more exciting than the current. That just might be indicative of a attention-deficit fanbase, but if games have truly become mass-media: Any given game should be able to punch through that tradition and explode on the scene closer to launch.

38 Studios has been downright cryptic when it comes to talking about their game. I think that’s wise, especially if their game is uniquely different as they say. They’re in control of their product, nobody is reacting to any given feature and making assumptions based on current games.

Too many MMORPGs lately have been chasing the pot-o-gold that World of Warcraft revealed. There’s been this widespread theory that if you slap the right elements together you’ll dominate the world. And that’s how the current crop of games have been made, by “listening to the fans” and maybe a bit of “market research“. Some of them haven’t been half bad, but most have had a core of promise that failed to deliver. The more corporate attempts have been soulless. At best, they’ve provided a decent world in the same model as WoW.

Maybe, just maybe, 38 Studios is trying to make their own game without being too influenced from outside sources that would shape their product into more of the same.

What we know

We know it’s an MMORPG and we know Curt Shilling loved Everquest, so he’s likely to give a few nods in that direction. We know it’s fantasy, they’ve made it clear they don’t think fantasy is over-saturated at all, they argue it just needs better games. We know they’re in it for the long haul and they’ve got a business plan. Curt Shilling is a crafty guy, savvy and relentless, he has all the elements for a good businessman. I know that and I don’t even watch baseball.

I think Keen is looking forward to this game as much as I am. He recognizes Curt Shilling has amassed a significantly talented workforce to make the game Curt Shilling wants to play. He’s hired from the top down, respecting that he doesn’t know the industry, so he started with people that do. He also created his talent team around R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, two names that are bound to turn heads when they do need to hype, but are also likely to give his story and art direction a strong focus.

There are some parallels here to BioWare. Good businessmen that started a game company to make games they wanted to play, in a non-corporate way. A deep respect of the RPG genre, but a desire to produce unique changes to that genre. Hiring the right people for an MMORPG and letting them do what they do well.

I’m hoping 38 Studios keeps their mouths shut until they’re good and ready. If all goes well, Copernicus could arrive as a unique, complete and compelling game. Sure that’s vague, but if it’s true we’ll all play it.