This trailer has gotten a lot of people up in arms over how bad it is. Especially how it ridicules an aspect that is prevalent in their target demographic with the reference to the stereotype that nerds are lonely losers without a social life.

Cry like an anime fan on prom night

It’s a great example on how the people that do the marketing for games have no clue about how their customers work, what they like, or what will make them buy products. What gamers seem to forget is what their role, and the role of this particular trailer, is.

Ignore the actual game and whether or not it’s any good for a while and let’s talk about marketing. The whole point of marketing is creating awareness; hopefully to sell a product, but mainly to create awareness and implant the knowledge that the product exists in the first place.

What gamers did was spread the word over how bad this commercial was. And as it spread, more and more people became aware that the game exists. No matter how bad the trailer is, the information got out there. And there might have been some people that thought “That is really dumb… but the game looks like it actually could be fun”.

Gamers seem to forget is that that trailer wasn’t for them

The second part that gamers seem to forget is that that trailer wasn’t for them. Gamers that are in the loop and try to keep current already knew that Mighty No.9 existed. They knew the pedigree of the product. And the decision of whether or not they were going to play it had already been made. And that makes them useless to the marketing department in this instance.

And there already were other trailers that showed the people in the loop what they wanted. But those trailers didn’t go viral, because they weren’t controversial. They didn’t ridicule an aspect of geek culture, and so there wasn’t any particular attention drawn to it. The theme was the same, but the target wasn’t the same. It wasn’t meant for the “dudebros” and the rest of the world that didn’t know about Mighty No.9 already.

There was an even earlier trailer for the purists.

But gamers will be watching a game, waiting for news and trailers about it, thinking that they’re owed something by the developer and publisher. They forget that it is a business and that in the end they’re being sold a product, just like any toothpaste trying to be THE toothpaste that you use. And then they will pre-order and buy season passes, hoping for the industry to change.

Of course there are exceptions and good marketing for video games out there. But even those are just using a different approach to reach you as a consumer.

This time around, however, they messed up.

Mind you that it had been about five years since I played another God of War game, so this might all be in my head. And whenever I’m playing as Kratos I go for the hardest setting available from the start of the game, which is usualy the Hard setting, unlocking more difficult ones when you’ve played through the game, so that’s my baseline.

One thing that has always been important, and that they’ve often gotten right, is precise and responsive controls. Meaning that when you press a button, Kratos reacts. This has always been very tight and I’ve felt that once I press the block or dodge-button, that’s what happens. During the harder parts of the previous games I’ve noticed I need to change my strategy to be successful, and some animations will leave me open for an attack from a different enemy than the one I’m focused on. I’ve been fine with this, it’s been part of the game, it’s forcing me to change strategy.

This time around, however, they messed up. This game contains more invulnerability-frames (frames of animation that makes the character invulnerable and/or pass through attacks) than all the previous games combined. And it’s not for you, the player, no no. It’s for the enemies. Meaning that in previous games when you could clink weapons with an enemy, by both attacking at the same time, and both of you stagger back, is now skewed towards the enemy. Your attack will either make you stagger, or just phase through the enemy, while their attack continues and strikes you without hesitation. And when they’ve started their animation there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

And from my perspective they’ve given you nothing to counter-act this. Previously you could block or dodge out of there to avoid the damage and stagger from the hit, but this time they make your animation play through. So when you realize that your attack will fail you try to block, but nothing is happening, because your attack animation has to finish first, and by then it’s too late.

And this is hindered even more by the unbalanced difficulty.

I have no problem with me failing as long as I feel it’s my own fault for not playing well enough.

I enjoy a challenge, something that I have to grind a bit to get better at so that I can beat it. But Ascension lacks this balance. The game is either too easy or too difficult. And when you hit the difficult part it’s like running into a wall. There’s no sense of just not being good enough and needing to change your strategy or tweak something to get trough it. Instead it’s just a stop, there’s nothing wrong with your strategy, it’s feels more like luck with what attacks are thrown at you and in what order to give you a window of opportunity that you can take advantage of.

And this is the main problem, when I die I don’t feel like it’s my fault. Playing games where I’ve died a whole lot more (Dark Souls comes to mind) I haven’t felt this frustrated or angry, because I haven’t felt it’s the games fault, it’s been mine for not being strategic enough, or going in too boldly. I have no problem with me failing as long as I feel it’s my own fault for not playing well enough. But when the combination of mechanics and level design is set up in the manner it is in certain sections of Ascension I don’t feel it’s me lacking, it’s the game cheating. Even when I get passed it I don’t get a sense of accomplishment, just that I had the luck of the draw.

And the developers have even admitted to making the game too difficult at one of these section, by releasing a patch to make it just a little bit less hard.

I just keep trying to get my headshot-bonus

Spoiler alert, but one of the earliest things that happen is that the enemies are switched from the local arabic people to other American soldiers. I’m not sure if that was their intention, but since the game tells me to do so I just start viewing them as enemies. I have no qualms about killing other Americans, but that might be because I am not one, so for me there’s a disconnect straight out from the start. But the game gives me no other options, there’s no mechanic to just shoot to incapacitate your enemies. And they are doing their best to kill you, so I just keep trying to get my headshot-bonus without thinking more about it.

That is until I quit playing the game and started thinking about this little thing. How easy was it for me to switch targets? And how much of my analyzing is because I’ve heard about what the game is trying to do before playing it?