The Day Before launched to abysmal reviews, surprising absolutely no-one who’s been paying any sort of attention. But for those of us who aren’t terminally online, some 200,000 gamers, this wasn’t so obvious. Oh, how I wish to live in such blissful ignorance.
I’m a video games journalist, so I’m online 24/7. I also really, really like Twitter. Sue me. Back in the day, I’d go on Funnyjunk after school just to look at silly memes; now, Twitter is my place to go. I’ve been online since dial up, and I’m not going to change anytime soon. This means even when I’m on holiday or not glued to my desk for eight hours, I still tend to have a pretty good idea of what’s going on in the industry. Most of my peers are similar. We need to be aware of current events, otherwise we lose our jobs. But most gamers out there don’t need to do that, so they don’t know when everyone thinks a game is a scam.
For many of us who’ve been burned by the hype train before, everything surrounding The Day Before set off red flags. Endless delays, highly curated trailers, over-promising—all signs a game is going to be “meh” at best and hot garbage at worst, all sins committed by developer FNTASTIC. People have been putting this game under the microscope for ages, so for many, the idea that 200,000 people bought into this obvious “scam” was unthinkable. But most people just don’t care about video games this obsessively.
Most gamers just buy the yearly CoD and FIFA, maybe NBA 2K, and carry on with their lives. They’ll see a cool advert on TV or YouTube, spot a poster on the train, or be recommended something by a friend. It’s truly unusual for people to know about all of the games coming out in the next few years. It’s not bad to know, but those of us who do are in the loud minority, not the silent majority of those who simply play games without going down a Twitter or Reddit rabbithole. I say again, oh how I wish to be them.
The Day Before‘s subreddit is full of people wondering how so many people fell for the marketing, but hey, it happens—that’s what marketing does. There’s obviously a difference between curated or fluffed-up gameplay and a trailer that’s not at all representative of what a game is actually like, and I do think the industry needs some better ad regulation, but why would the average gamer look beyond the trailer IGN shoves in front of them?
We should all dream of being as blissfully naive as the people who thought The Day Before was going to revolutionize gaming. What a wonderful world they must live in. They’re not stupid, though, as around 90,000 people have reportedly requested refunds, so while these gamers may be trusting, they’re not willing to be ripped off.
