by 
I don’t want to be that guy, but I’m going to give Sony some free advice: do not, under any circumstances, attempt to reintroduce Fairgames at next month’s State of Play.
It doesn’t matter how good the game looks and how much confidence you have in Haven’s work, I’m telling you right here and now: it’s not going to go down well.
I genuinely don’t want to seed negativity, but I’ve been doing this job long enough to know it’s a terrible idea.
If the recently registered trademark Break In is indeed a rebranding of the heist game, then I think the platform holder should reintroduce it separately from the State of Play.
I know it seems insane to suggest a publisher shouldn’t promote one of its upcoming games during its next big livestream, but I’ve seen this scene play out a dozen or so times before.
The people watching your broadcast are the enthusiasts, the ultra-hardcore players – and they despise even the slightest sniff of live service. It will bring the mood down, and it’s not in the best interests of the game.
“But Sammy,” I hear you scream, “everyone hates Horizon Hunters Gathering, and that wasn’t in a State of Play.”
Correct! But we all saw the reaction to that game when it was revealed on a random weekday via the PS Blog; it would have been 1,000x worse if it had been part of a live broadcast.
I think we all remember what happened with Highguard – after all, it wasn’t too long ago.
Yes, there’s a general malaise circling hero shooters anyway, but this game got eviscerated because it had the temerity of being the last announcement at The Game Awards.
Now I think the pent-up fury around that game did help it to achieve impressive day one player numbers; there was a curiosity around it.
But the pitchforks were already out for it, and its prime position during Geoff Keighley’s awards ceremony made it public enemy number one. It was never going to recover from that.
I feel for the folks at Haven because I’m sure all it wants to do is make a game people want to play. And I’m confident it’s pouring its heart and soul into the project.
But the PlayStation fanbase is savage; Sony’s created a culture where only single player games are accepted, and while I don’t think that should deter it from releasing multiplayer games, it has to be careful how it presents them.
I just don’t think State of Play, with its intense enthusiast audience, is that destination. No matter how good it looks, once fans realise what they’re looking at is a rebranded Fairgames, the fury is going to come forth. There’s just no way around this.
I honestly think the manufacturer’s better off just giving the fans what they want: Marvel’s Wolverine, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, maybe even the new God of War. I think we all inherently know the type of games enthusiasts are tuning into a State of Play for.
It doesn’t need to ignore Fairgames forever; just present it differently, separately, at a venue where it has the best possible chance to succeed.
There’ll still be haters, there always is – but State of Play is a death sentence for these types of games now.
That’s the culture Sony’s created in this post-Concord world and it needs to suck it up and accept it for what it is.
There is a way to reintroduce Fairgames and not set the Internet on fire, but I think it’s a fool if it believes State of Play is that place.
And yes, the culture of gaming discourse and the Internet at large is a big fat bummer, but this is the climate PlayStation has to navigate. If it decides to bury its head in the sand, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Do you think Sony will re-reveal Fairgames at next month’s State of Play? Is it the right destination for the game, or should the platform holder take a different approach with this project? Let us know below.
Comments 47
If Sony throws this steaming pile into the state of play, they deserve every single bit of the mockery they will receive for doing so.
I mean, it's got to show up at some point right? BUT if they end the show on fairgames that would be an awful choice, like I said in the other article all they need to do show good games like the previous SoP everyone will be happy.
I'm sorry but people just have to accept that not every game at these shows are for them. You can't be expecting Sony to quietly just show their games on the side just because the internet gets mad because it isn't a single player game.
If we get games like Intergalactic, Wolverine, Kena and Cory Barlog's game shown them people should be satisfied.
"But the PlayStation fanbase is savage; Sony’s created a culture where only single player games are accepted, and while I don’t think that should deter it from releasing multiplayer games, it has to be careful how it presents them."
This right here is just sad.
Now PlayStation will do it just to spite you, Sammy.
I feel like the wolverine game is going to hog most of the show , but i do want to see dq12 or ff7 part 3, a witcher 4 date confirmation would be cool, the new god of war game has angry gamers written all over it so probably better off to avoid that.
This site is so unprofessional what is this article.
@AdamNovice There's a big difference between "not every game is for everyone" and "eye-rolling waste of time that will actively piss off your core audience". Fairgames (Break In, now, maybe, I guess) is clearly in the latter category.
Ship has already sailed, its a sunk cost fallacy at this stage and they have to reveal it at some point. Better get this over with sooner than later so they can finally see that people don't care about these dumb games.
@Ultrasmiles Ain't no way we are seeing Witcher 4 at a SoP, would love to be wrong but that would be at TGA or SGF if anything.
@RBMango So what's the alternative? Just bin it off along with the studio?
It will the "Just one more thing..." moment of the show. 😉
@AdamNovice exactly everybody just don’t play or want single player games. the best thing about the ps3 gen it had little bit of everything.
@AdamNovice It worked for Concord! Except this time Sony can actually save time by not charging and refunding everyone a week after it crashes and burns.
I'd like to see them do it - rip off the Band-Aid so to speak. Make it quick, highlight the things that people might want to see out of a game, and move on to something else. No HUGE CINEMATIC REVEAL with DEV INTERVIEWS and OMG THE VA'S ARE HERE!!1! sort of fanfare. Test the waters and see where people are at.
@TrollOfWar I don't think this is going to be the one more thing of the show. That's going to Santa Monica's game 100%. Even Sony aren't that stupid and out of touch with their audience...I hope
@dskatter Yeah and it was a stupid decision. Sony didn't give it any time to build anything resembling a playerbase and lead to another studio closure.
@ChikaBambus @TrollOfWar I think the "one more thing" will be Intergalactic
"the culture of gaming discourse and the Internet at large is a big fat bummer"
Getting vibes of Jay from the inbetweeners slightly grown up, there.
@ChikaBambus I really hope they aren't that dumb.
@get2sammyb Do you really think there's any way for Sony to re-reveal Fairgames and not have a completely unhinged reaction from PlayStation fans? I honestly don't think so.
People these days find genuine joy in watching studios and games fail and I don't know how you overcome that once the audience decides the game "needs" to fail.
“But Sammy,” I hear you scream, “everyone hates Horizon Hunters Gathering, and that wasn’t in a State of Play.”
Who says that?!? Do you have their addresses?! How dare they slander my "obese lunch lady fights the rogue kitchen equipment" simulator?!!!
This site has been driving unwanted negative narratives about PlayStation for clicks a lot lately. I understand to report bad news but trying to make negativity out nothing is so unprofessional.
@wildcat_kickz Even single player games are getting the hate these days as well, especially if it stars a female. People just seem incapable of enjoying anything anymore.
@AdamNovice Hard disagree. Killing Concord was the most self-aware thing Sony had done since…well, green-lighting Concord.
Rewriting history by saying they didn’t give it time to get a player base is interesting. It COMPLETELY BOMBED at launch to the point that it was barely possible to get a match going. It got a MAXIMUM of 697 people playing on Steam.
It made Highguard look like a roaring success. The only game Concord has outperformed is Dustborn.
Sony did a mercy kill on Concord.
@Oram77 There are news that Sony is sending out invitations to media outlets to attend, so this event might just be big enough for Intergalatic to show up, I hope you're right. Just seems to me that Santa Monica's game would be earlier, since Nate also mentioned something about it being in the June State of Play.
Sony will showcase horizon hunter gatherers, fairgame$, and hyenas. To remind us that they are still chasing the live service golden goose. And they're this close 🤏 to achieving greatness for the players.
I remember it like it was yesterday when that one dev from Firewalk said "Concord is a 5v5 hero shooter" everyone knew that game was never going to pan out.
@AdamNovice Female characters have been a part of gaming since gaming was invented and they were almost always liked. Problem isn't with male or female characters, it's with making said characters snark and insufferable, at least in my humble opinion. You are right about gamers being generally more negative in recent times though.
The casuals who like this sort of game don't stay up late to watch some state of play for games that are years out so I get what Sammy is saying here. Best to show the AAA single player stuff and use Twitter and all the places casuals who are their target audience are to promote the live service stuff.
@ChikaBambus That sounds promising! Also remember a couple a weeks ago Naughty Dog were on Crunch to get out a internal Demo to show to Sony.... Maybe they liked what they saw
Unfortunately, it very much appears that the PS4’s incredible series of single player narrative games has resulted in the ecosystem cultivating an ongoing audience that consists almost entirely of angry man-babies with no friends.
Now we’re at the point where people will vehemently hate a game they’ve never seen a single second of in-game footage for. Apathy, sure, but this kind of dedicated hate? It’s pretty unreal, and embarrassing for anyone who partakes in it honestly.
@AdamNovice Unfortunately, it's not that they can't find joy. It's that they've decided they get the most joy out of schadenfreude and pretend it's some sort of "revelation" that we haven't caught on to yet. If everything is a zero-sum game, then every game that they don't like is an opportunity cost, taking away a fictional game that they do like.
@dskatter It's not rewriting history, it's the truth. Sony killed it in less then two weeks without letting studio add more content and features. And all it did with was given ammunition to the haters to the point that no game gets a chance now.
@Oram77 You're right, I forgot about the Internal demo. After so much negative news, I think that they will try to turn the ship around and give some bright news for once, and man, do I hope they succeed.
Lol, i’m a Playstation fan, and dont care for these live service titles as well.
But the moment you see me whine about them showing a trailer for a game i dont care about, pls just close my account all together because i’m done at that point 😂
@ChikaBambus Except we didn't have social media back then. I guarantee you if the first Metroid came out now people will be frothing at the mouth over Samus being a woman. They will just look for any excuse to hate.
If it's good, Sony should do 'closed' betas, with more and more people, Valve style. Let people think they've stumbled on a secret. Let them whisper it on the web "Break In is actually fun".
If it's not good, no amount of marketing will help
@AdamNovice I'm not sure, you might be right. A lot of gamers have become a negative bunch, that's for certain.
@get2sammyb I think sometimes it’s ok to be “that” guy lol
@LogicStrikesAgain You took the words right out of my mouth.
The majority of these shows are stuffed with games that aren't for me, but that's perfectly fine.
If they reveal a new Little Big Planet game I'm sure there are plenty of people in the core audience who would lap it up. It wouldn't be for me though. Neither is Fairgames. Trailers for games like that come and go in a blur, but they give me time to banter with my buddies in the watch party.
Show me some new Wolverine footage, maybe slip in one or two of my favourite X-Men as cameos, and they can show back to back FMV Coronation Street and Fairgame trailers for all I care.
If that does happen, it will continue the trend of generational record of awful decisions by sony lately
@Shepherd_Tallon FMV coronation street please no 😂
They definitely need to close out the show with Fair Games. The amount of enjoyment I'd get out of that would be astronomical.
@get2sammyb While things could go horribly wrong by putting Fairgames in the SoP, especially if they end with it, the problem is if they exclude it, everyone is going to be watching the entire showing thinking about Fairgames and crossing their fingers it isn't the last thing they show.
Are you familiar with the thought experiment - don't think about a pink elephant.
Best they can probably do is start the show with something big like Wolverine or Intergalactic, show Fairgames next whole everyone is busy on social media talking about the first game, then move on quick.
I think Sony has spent too much money on it not to be in there, but it can't open or close, just get it over with quick. If they don't get it over with quick all of our fingers are going to go numb from keeping them crossed for an hour hoping it doesn't show up. They just need to make the rest of the show so good that 1 hiccup doesn't matter.🤞
@datamonkey It could be amazing 🫠
Choose your response:
1. "Pint please, luv."
2. "Have you seen my wife?"
3. "Have you seen, Liz?"
4. "Have you seen your wife?"
I've forgotten that fairgames is still hanging on. I thought it went the way of beyond good and evil 2 as in an eternal unfulfilled promise
I'm a reasonable man. If they paid me to play it, I'd give it a chance.
Say, £10 of store credit for 10 minutes of my time.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...