Does Hellblade Show Gaming Is Moving Away From Hype Cycles

Summary

Is Hellblade being igored by Xbox, or is this a deliberate new strategy?
Marketing is expensive, and gaming has a problem with overlong hype cycles.
I'd like to see more games revealed with just months to go, but it remains to be seen what path the industry will take.

In the wake of Xbox closing down Taﷺngo Gameworks and Arkane Austin, fans have been worried about the state of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. Not so much its quality - being great didn't save 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hi-Fi Rush - but its sales figures, and what it will mean for developeꦯr Ninja Theory if it fails (by whatever metric that might be). This worry quickly turned to talk about the lack of marketing for the game, leading to Xbox tweeting a picture of Hellblade 2 and its release date in re🎃sponse.

Now you and I know what Hellblade 2 is. We've seen the trailers at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Game Awards, we're aware of the impressive visuals and the mental health themes, and many of you will have played the first one and be hoping the sequel can build on its strengths. In this bubble, it can be difficult to square the idea of a game having 'no marketing' because those showcase trailers are expensive spots, and the fact that we're all aware of the game already suggests that it has been marketed fairly well after all.

What's Going On With Hellblade's Marketing?

Senua and two people holding weapons in the distance in Hellblade 2

But you might be less aware that the game is out in just over a week, and that's where the lack of marketing comes into play. Things haven't really ramped up as the game approaches, and as the first of Xbox's big hitter exclusives going into this emptier period of the year where Nintendo and Sony have ducked out, it could be a sign of things to come. ♒But is this a change in strategy, and is it goo൲d news or bad news for Hellblade?

Marketing is an odd thing. We don't really know how much it works. We've all heard of McDonald's. We know exactly what they are and exactly what they do. And yet they spend billions of dollars on advertising - is that effective when we all know what a Big Mac tastes like? But if they stopped advertising, maybe we'd notice. Certainly we'd never hear about new items on the menu, and that might make us less likely to go there, thus proving the purpose of advertising even when everybody knows your name.

Hellblade is not McDonald's. My parents could name a fair few video games, and they will not have heard of Hellblade. But marketing is expensive - the more you spend on marketing, the bigger the budget for your game, the more money you need to make back. Less marketing makes your game cheaper, which makes it easier to make a profit. But it also means fewer people have heard of you, will buy you, which makes it harder to make a profit. It's a balancing act.

Is Gaming Moving Away From Hype Cycles?

Senuas Saga Hellblade 2 characters face being grabbed by hands from all directions

There has been a change in strategy across gaming recently. Originally, games were announced once development began because the gap between starting and finishing them was pretty short. As that gap grew, advertising didn't really change, giving us elongated hype cycles. In the case of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elden Ring, the old ways can still work. In the case of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk 2077, letting𝓀 the pot boil for too long can 💜be catastrophic.

Last year we saw 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man 2 hold its release date until the very last moment. GTA 6 gave just a year between its first tra🐼iler and release window. Many of the games due out this year just have '2024' down as their release date, with nothing firmer even as we approach the year's half-way point. And then we have Hellblade 2 - so far, its launch cycle marketing has been a single tweet of an image we've already seen.

Tweeting an image is cheap - it's basically free once you factor in that the social media admin gets paid whatever they're posting. So that keeps costs down for a game that seemingly was part of the Game Pass ecosystem strategy, a strategy that Xbox very publicly killed with the execution of Hi-Fi Rush developers Tango Gameworks. There's a silver lining in keeping Hellblade's costs lower, but mostly, it feels like Xbox is sending the game out to die, the last soldier of a war it has already moved on from.

But Hellblade 2 aside, the industry is changing. GTA 6, for example, is not being abandoned while Rockstar moves onto new ideas. Sony has literally nothing revealed right now, but its statements of '168澳洲幸运5开奖网:nothing until April 2025' suggests we're only a year out from one or two major releases, and we don't even know what they are. Nintendo is waiting until the June Direct to reveal what it has in store for the latter half of 2024, and rumours suggest 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age Dreadwolf is set to go from a whisper on the wi🌺nd and some CGI trailers to launching in just a 🌃few months.

Note: There are exceptions - The Elder Scrolls 6 has already been ‘revealed&rsq𒆙uo; while Xbox has been periodically advertising Fable and Perfect Dark for several years now.

These aren't all being kicked out to save costs, this is a deliberate switch in how games are marketed. It keeps costs and hype low until excitement can suddenly explode with a surprise reveal. Hi-Fi Rush was shadow dropped (though did receive moderate promotion post-launch), so I'm not sure if this changes things for Hellblade, but if the industry can keep costs down with sensible advertising while also taking away the storm clouds of delay, it feels like a positive move for all concerned.