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Managing expectations and the Modern Warfare 2 trailer

by: Chuck -
More On: EIC Ramblings
MTV has a post up describing how they were sitting with the Infinity Ward guys last week when the Modern Warfare 2 trailer debuted at GDC last week.  The post talks about the mixed reaction to the teaser trailer for the game and comment specifically about the hatorade poured forth by some of the people commenting at GameTrailers.  While you can't please everyone you do have to wonder how much the over-hyping of the trailer by Geoff Keighley on Twitter had to do with the rancor. 

Let's face it, most people knew that Infinity Ward was working on the game and most people knew that the trailer was going to debut at the event.  So it does make you wonder why Geoff felt the need to hype the event to such a huge degree.  We get it, you've got the exclusive teaser for a game.  That's fantastic news but there's not a need to blanked the game name in total secrecy and try to build it up like it's the second coming of Miyamoto.   Honestly he would have been better off saying "We've got a first look at Modern Warfare 2 tonight, check in at the GDC's tonight" and that would have done a better job of setting expectations for everyone.  Instead, he kills a lot of his credibility by hyping something beyond belief. 

I get that media has to compete for eyeballs and attention in an era where there are millions of other voices out there but don't overhype something because that just pisses people off.  We've seen plenty of faux-megatons over the years and every time it's made the organization hyping the announcement look bad.  Hopefully as the industry grows we can move away from this type of bush-league material and get on to more substantial things.