I may write them, I may read them, but this does not mean I like previews. They are an inherently flawed cog in the grand videogame business machine and they’ll never go away. Previews, any early criticism of a game not done by the developer, publisher, or their QA teams really, is essential. Any creator needs to get a little distance from their creation to gain perspective, to consider it in a new way before it’s finished. Novelists, essayists, filmmakers, musicians, and academics work in concert with editors, engineers, producers, and any number of other peers on the path to birthing their work. Given, games are unique. Authors don’t typically have journalists reading sample chapters of a book two years before it comes out, judging what sentences work, which don’t, and predicting, for thousands of readers, whether or not the book will suck as a whole. "Well, Rushdie seems to be up to his old tricks. We got eyes on with chapters 3 through 6, and his circuitous sentence structure is in place, but we can't tell if his classic characterization is there to be complimented by it. Here's hoping it's a torrid family history worthy of the Fatwaed-One's legacy when it releases this fall."
Just not how it works.
The problem is that videogame previews shape public perception, and sometimes success, of an unfinished game based on what’s almost always a trifling sample of the overall experience. Sometimes, especially early in development, the previewer doesn’t even play the game. Eyes-on, hands-on, final impressions, review is the simple version of the cycle, but sometimes a game’s reputation can be irreparably tainted by the hands-on stage. Most previews lean positive – because the writer wants to believe in the game/stay in the publisher’s good graces – so when a preview is negative, especially if it’s of a marquee game, it stands out. The best case scenario is that this negativity comes from an honest place and it helps the developer make a better game. Worst case scenario, the writer just doesn’t like the game, and dumps on it because they’re filling a word count. Maybe Dennis Dyack’s been right all along. Maybe games shouldn’t be previewed at all. Maybe people would have like Too Human more if it hadn’t been for its tumultuous development and terrible, terrible preview reputation.
Probably not. Too Human wasn’t a very good game.
This leaked footage of God of War III from GDC that’s been making the internet rounds today is what got my brain cooking on previews.
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