w00t w00t for Leo-J.
Boo to people who claim it's all hype. Compare the hype behind Lair to the hype behind Bioshock. Lair was hyped for YEARS. Bad reviews, bad sales. Bioshock was totally under the radar compared to Lair. It didn't get nearly the attention, and it's release sort of snuck up on people, but the reviews were absolutely glowing, and the sales were big and sustained.
I can already tell where this is going, with people saying the good reviews of Bioshock created hype, while the bad reviews for Lair killed it. But if you contend that hype is caused by good reviews, caused by good initial sales, caused by word of mouth, caused by positive news stories about the product, etc, then you have to analyze how something gets good reviews, sales, WOM, news, etc, and not try to mysticize "hype."
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
