Do you keep up with games before their release?

I just kind of completely abandoned running on the marketing treadmill for entertainment products many years ago, without giving it any thought. I think it was part of growing up.

Varies a lot depending on what kind of game it is, how sure I am I'll be playing the game, and how much I care about the game.

Nope, way too lazy for that lolz

Not as much as a I used to. Mostly because I realized I end up spoiling a lot if I look at everything released about a game before it comes out. While that won't stop me from enjoying a game, it's more fun to have surprises.

If it's a game I pretty much already know I'm going to buy there's really no reason to pay attention anyway, other than to sate my anticipation. If it's a game I'm uncertain about I may watch more, for research.

It can be a double edged sword though, as pre-release marketing is good for building hype, and it is fun to be super excited about a new game coming out. It's the closest thing I get these day to feeling like a kid on Christmas morning.

I think the amount of ways that there are out there now for getting info on upcoming games has made previews and such less exciting for me.

Thinking back to the 90s and early 2000s, the major sources of info for games were magazines for all of your previews, screenshots, etc. And short gameplay clips and trailers on the net were limited to low bitrate RealPlayer videos that took like hours to download if you had a crappy connection.

If I wanna know anything about a game now I can just watch a 20-minute video on YouTube or catch a stream a week before release and I have all the info I need to make a purchase.

If it's multiplayer focused and I'm interested in it then I try to keep up on things. For story-heavy games I usually avoid everything past the first trailer or two. I might watch some snippets of gameplay to see what it looks like but I like to go into games fresh.

Something that's been frustrating for me recently is how often important gameplay details get offloaded to exclusive YouTuber coverage. Battlefield V had a big problem with this if I remember correctly. If you want to sell me on your product then do it through official channels. I don't want to have to go shop around to random EA Game Changers to find out what the new features are.

Also, there have been a couple cases where the preview cycle for a game is long enough that I begin to tire of the whole thing, notable the first Watch Dogs and Death Stranding. I love when something gets revealed and is out within 6 months. Fallout 4 was the perfect example of this, even if the actual game left me somewhat wanting.

I will watch some gameplay and trailers for games just to see what they are about. If new trailers release I may check them out depending on how interested I am. I rarely read previews anymore though.

Yes, but if a game seems to be a known quantity and I know I’m going to want to play it good or bad, I won’t look at a thing beyond a bit of gameplay.

If I want to avoid spoilers, I'll keep it to a minimum. If I'm interested enough but spoilers don't apply/don't matter to me, I'll devour everything I can. The only exceptions are Mortal Kombat (I care about the story, but pre-release marketing doesn't focus on that for the most part) and Doom (same deal).

But yeah, I do like building hype for myself. Half of the fun is the anticipation.

I use to love pre-release info/videos when I was a kid but starting around maybe 17-18, I did a complete 180. The stuff I care enough to keep up with, I know I'm gonna play so I don't want to see any of it. Like Death Stranding for example, I of course saw the reveal trailer and I also saw the first gameplay teaser one from the Sony conference where they only had 4 games but I haven't seen anything else of it. And then everything else, I just need to see a tiny snippet of gameplay to know if I want to give it a try.

If it shows up here, then yes, outside of that not really. I rely on all of your hype to keep me topped up.

I’m basically a blindfold guy.

I’d probably hop on the Molyneux Train if that guy had a big studio, big budget, and made another console game...it’s a fun ride.

99% of my pre-release information comes from the E3 press conferences or GB podcasts. Even with the podcasts, I’ll skip talks about games I’m super interested in. For games I’m not already sold on, my brain sort of glazes over. I prefer when the shows are about miscellaneous bullshit.

As much as it's wise to do so I keep up with them

These days it really does behoove you to get some lay of the land before getting a game. On PC this can mean checking to see if the game is optimized, or if there are any serious bugs you might want to wait out. On console it can mean seeing if you wouldn't rather get it on PC instead because the performance can often be real bad. Then there of course are reviews and seeing if what you see is what you get and all that.

As an example I was looking forward to playing The Surge 2. Played through the first game via GamePass on a whim and was really pleasantly surprised - enough so to get my excited for the upcoming sequel. So I checked out a few trailer and gameplay videos and it seemed like everything I liked about the first one wasn't really expanded upon and none of the issues I thought the game had were really resolved all that well if at all. On top of that right after release there was a lot of talk about how poorly it runs on PC considering how it looks, not to mention that textures straight up fail to load after a while on the PS4 version.

So with all that in mind, despite really wanting to play it initially, I decided to give it a pass for now. Later down the road it will either come to Game Pass or it will get heavily discounted on some summer sale with patches smoothing a lot of the rough edges out.

Another short example is that earlier this year I was really hyped to get DMC5 because I generally enjoy the genre. I waited for the Quick Look and then watched some videos and what I saw wasn't exactly what I was expecting I guess and I considerably cooled off on the purchase. Now months later I had played through it on Game Pass and I'm pretty glad I didn't end up buying it back then because as part of the subscription service I was kind of lukewarm on the game overall, but if I had spent release day money on it I would have probably be a lot more upset.

At this point in time it's kind of dangerous to not follow up on your release of choice before putting down money on it.

I am in a weird place with this. On one hand I get excited when a new game is announced that sounds to be in my wheelhouse. But the more I consume of previews the less impact the game has as it becomes a more more known quantity. However, I also rarely buy a game I end up disliking because of it.

I think the only unspoken rule I follow these days is if a game seems like one I’ll enjoy and buy, I tend to avoid consuming coverage of it. I’ll watch a quick look of it if I am still undecided, otherwise I often watxh quick looks of games after Inhave started them to see the GB take on it just for fun.

Majority of game trailers are CG nonsense that has little to do with the game itself. I often don't bother with most AAA games so that's really a moot point, but I been playing games long enough to know what I will enjoy and not, so I don't need a company to tell me what to buy. I have a few places like here that I check up on to see what is coming out and get opinions on games I may be interested in, but that is about as far and deep as I dive into games before they get released.

Most games no. I will generally just look at the biggest pieces of news or announcements, then it'll just eventually show up finished as I keep on living my life. Ain't got the hours in the day to bother anymore.

However, for games I'm VERY excited for and have pretty solid release schedules for their info, I will keep up. I looked at pretty much everything they had to say about DMC 5 before release, inluding panels. I did the same for Monster Hunter World (not iceborne though). And I tend to keep up with fighting game trailers to some extent like watching all the Guilty Gear 2020 stuff as it gets released.