I don't disagree that some fault lies within the consumer, but there have been plenty of cases of publishers trying to sell you something while simultaneously trying to cover your eyes so you don't know exactly what you are buying.

Ubisoft.

I never bother to scrutinize or analyze a preview or a trailer for a game coming in 12 months. My priority is not graphics anyway, but quality gameplay and story. And as long as the developer delivers those two as promised, I don't care at all if the game loses a few p's in the process, or if the grass is now two shades lighter than in an E3 trailer.
Up until recently I played games in 720p or lower, and enjoyed myself immensly, why get hung up on minor details now.

Written by dualshockers! Oh the irony!

Everyone knows what these articles are used for. It's for people who have absolutely no intention of buying a console to say "This game was going to make me buy a (insert console here) specifically for this game, but now that it looks worse I am not going to buy a (insert console here).

I'm fine with downgrades tbh, they happen and sometimes can't be helped. But I agree that there's too many of the downgrade articles nowadays... it's like the obsession people had with graphics

Cop out answer. When most trailers are referred to as "actual in game footage", I think gamers do have a right to be upset that it isn't... you know.... actual in game footage.

I personally think that the developers/publishers should only show what they have. Yes, they have a product to sell so that takes marketing and showing off, but when no product exists don't show anything! Simple right?

Games like GTA V (I think there might of been some disparity between the initial screenshots in terms of resolution, but the footage was real), The Last of Us, Bloodborne, Overwatch, and pretty much any Nintendo game show us the actual game footage instead of this 'targeted' bull, and they haven't suffered for lack of marketing or delivering excitement for the products. It can be done.

The real issue is developers/publishers want to hype up their products, and when they can't deliver they decide to blame the consumer for not understanding the way the industry works. More bull!

Don't they write "this trailer doesn't represent the final game and quality can be subject to changes" at the end of every trailer? They aren't lying if you think about it. I think that people complain too much.

All I can think of with this article is UbiSoft. They make such good preview trailers that they're hard to forget when the actual, far less impressive product releases.

I do agree that Digital Foundry doing in-depth tech analysis of unoptimized non-final builds of games is garbage. Remember all the talk about RE HD not maintaining 60 fps? Yeah.