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Discussion Tears of the Kingdom and its marketing (or lack thereof) - how do you feel?

Kevin said:
While I trust the Zelda team and Nintendo and preordered the collector's edition already (so they got my monies) my fear is that collectively the masses won't be to excited for this game if Nintendo doesn't show more. Like even if me or you don't need to see more footage to be sold on the game, it's easy to surf the internet and see that a large amount of people are not sold on the game and are disappointed. I'm seeing it across multiple forums I frequent, Twitter, YouTube, etc. I would argue that it seems like the majority of Zelda fans are not sold on this game and are in the position of being letdown so far.

It's very possible the actual game could be a straight up masterpiece but the marketing so far is shifting the dynamic to a point where people are losing interest and I'm worried that this could greatly impact sales. Even I'll admit that I'm not exactly hyped or blown away from the footage so far. It still looks more or less like more BOTW which isn't a bad thing per say but I still kind of expected and wanted more after six years and I still feel like that could absolutely happen but we are not seeing it yet.

I know you don't want Nintendo to spoil much of the game but this is one of those weird situations that if Nintendo stays too quiet then it could really hurt momentum and sales. The $70 pricetag is another factor that I think could hurt this game. Especially if people are left disappointed with the current footage.

I think Nintendo basically needs to market this game a hell of a lot more even if some people don't want anymore footage because I think if they don't the sales will be greatly impacted judging by the mass disappointment I'm seeing all over the place. Still the narrative could change between now and May as more footage is released. Whole situation is weird because the Switch is old, BOTW is old and TOTK really kind of looks more of the same. This game would have greatly benefited from a next gen version releasing. I still think this was a mistake on Nintendo's part but hey what do I know. I'm just a guy on the internet. :p
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I don't see that same sentiment at all, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place. I really have no doubts whatsoever that this will do massive sales.

Either way I'm quite confident they will have another trailer or two before it launches which will help clarify things and help sell the game.
 
Skittzo said:
I don't see that same sentiment at all, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place. I really have no doubts whatsoever that this will do massive sales.

Either way I'm quite confident they will have another trailer or two before it launches which will help clarify things and help sell the game.
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Oh absolutely. I think the marketing will be similar to Xenoblade Chronicles 3. First we got like a 3 minute trailer (if I remember correctly) that showed bits and then a full story trailer, a Direct, Twitter drops, so much coverage even I stopped watching lol. I imagine the same here. I can wait. :)
 
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Selarmor said:
Like these are very, very fundamental questions that aren't being answered
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These are questions forum-goers are concerned about but I’d say the vast majority don’t really care about those specific points. Like the complaint about BotW not having “proper dungeons” is something I have only read online. Every person I know in real life, whether prior Zelda fans or not, had no issue.

Kevin said:
because I think if they don't the sales will be greatly impacted judging by the mass disappointment I'm seeing all over the place
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Online discourse is hardly a reliable barometer for a game’s sales success, especially if it’s from places like Youtube or Twitter.
 
Skittzo said:
I'm having trouble understanding how any of your post follows the first line, where you say they're actively choosing to show things that are giving people doubt.

You've given a list of things they haven't showed, not things they've showed which does instill doubt.

My position here is that they've earned the benefit of the doubt from the marketing of BotW, and Switch games in general, which tended to have a ton of "they haven't shown X so X isn't in the game" reactions proven wrong many times. Nothing they've shown changes that.
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This game will have been in development for nearly 6 years using BotW as a starting point. BotW was created from scratch and ported to a new system in less time than that. Three months before launch they haven't shown us anything that justifies that development time, or explains how this is a fundamentally new game. Everything they've shown looks like it could have been DLC for BotW.

If this game were coming out in 2020 what they've shown would be acceptable, but after this long people's expectations are much higher, and nothing they've shown us suggests those expectations will be met.

Will this game meet those expectations? Probably, but if so, show us. People are clearly starting to doubt it.

meatbag said:
These are questions forum-goers are concerned about but I’d say the vast majority don’t really care about those specific points. Like the complaint about BotW not having “proper dungeons” is something I have only read online. Every person I know in real life, whether prior Zelda fans or not, had no issue.
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The majority don't watch Nintendo Directs or Treehouse streams. They see or hear about a Zelda game and buy it. These trailers and demos are aimed at people like us, and we then generate the positive word of mouth that spreads to the majority.
 
At this point I just want either a TotK specific Direct or Treehouse Live video. Mostly because I want to explicitly know what’s changed from BotW.

My hunch is that we’ll start getting a lot more information once we’re in March with April being previews season.
 
They havn’t even shown gameplay of Link diving in the air…

Clearly they are keeping this close to the chest and have only shown teasers thus far.

Not sure what the outrage is about to be honest.
 
They are not going to explicitly talk about "proper dungeons", "armor scaling" and so on. They'll show new environments and mechanics and let them speak for itself. I don't think they'll frame their new implementations as "corrections" from BotW, but present TotK as this distinct experience.
 
Selarmor said:
The literal point of this thread is for people to explain how they feel about what's been shown so far.
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Yeah I’m moreso commenting on the doomposting here and on ERA over TOTK somehow feeling underwhelming because the trailer didn’t tell all.

Just a weird backlash that is unwarranted and will be completely laughable and forgotten when the game is shown more close to release.
 
Golden said:
I agree to a certain point, but we do have to realize that in retrospect Botw trailers aren't how they were when we first saw them. We are not yet at the point where we have the final trailer from ToTK so we can't compare the feeling to 2017 presentation trailer.

Before that, there was a lot of "this game looks empty" "this game looks boring" "where are the puzzles" "omg there are no towns". Like, the same complaints were made for the game and it later on became one of the best games of all time.

Y'all gotta look for what the trailers present instead of looking for what's missing. It's okay to feel underwhelmed by the trailers but still, the game is 3 months away. They won't give you that final look and have nothing to show later on.

BUT, i do agree that the trailers have been cut in a certain way that is confusing. Like the recent one for example, it's starts as a story trailer, builds up and then cuts to a light hearted gameplay trailer. It felt less focused and should have continued on the story part since we already got those gameplay elements. The customization could have been revealed in a gameplay trailer instead.
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I am not talking about the Switch 2017 presentation trailer, I was actually referring the Wii U 2016 trailer.
 
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You know what's the biggest misstep of the zelda marketing?
Too many trailers, I think they should have scrapped the september 2022 trailer and just give us this trailer in february. Yeah the wait would have been painful but I think the amount of end of direct trailers for zelda has been kind of tiring and that's why some people are feeling the way they do now.
 
Selarmor said:
This game will have been in development for nearly 6 years using BotW as a starting point. BotW was created from scratch and ported to a new system in less time than that. Three months before launch they haven't shown us anything that justifies that development time, or explains how this is a fundamentally new game. Everything they've shown looks like it could have been DLC for BotW.

If this game were coming out in 2020 what they've shown would be acceptable, but after this long people's expectations are much higher, and nothing they've shown us suggests those expectations will be met.

Will this game meet those expectations? Probably, but if so, show us. People are clearly starting to doubt it.
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Again all I'm saying is that they have earned the benefit of the doubt. Nothing shown in the trailers so far suggests otherwise.

Yes, they haven't shown us all that much yet. Yes, there will be tons more than they've shown. I don't personally think it's poor marketing since they've done this style of marketing a lot and it's worked out extremely well for them.
 
Skittzo said:
Again all I'm saying is that they have earned the benefit of the doubt. Nothing shown in the trailers so far suggests otherwise.

Yes, they haven't shown us all that much yet. Yes, there will be tons more than they've shown. I don't personally think it's poor marketing since they've done this style of marketing a lot and it's worked out extremely well for them.
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I think the very existence of this topic and a lot of the sentiment within it shows that its poor marketing.
 
Enpsty said:
It happens again and again yet ppl keep doing that.
It happened with botw and the whole towns thing.
It happened with Mario Odyssey with the whole autorunner thing (plus the whole enemy capturing mechanic wasn't revealed until what a month before release?)
It happened with Xeno 3 and the lack of info a mobth before release.
It happened recently with GOW Ragnarok.
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The Capture mechanic was revealed at E3 2017, four months before release.
 
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Selarmor said:
I think the very existence of this topic and a lot of the sentiment within it shows that its poor marketing.
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The point of the marketing process is to make as many people as possible purchase the game when it's available. Impulse buyers, for example, are a very important segment. What people think now about the game is irrelevant. If the whole process fails and people don't buy the game, then it's poor marketing.
 
Selarmor said:
This game will have been in development for nearly 6 years using BotW as a starting point. BotW was created from scratch and ported to a new system in less time than that. Three months before launch they haven't shown us anything that justifies that development time, or explains how this is a fundamentally new game. Everything they've shown looks like it could have been DLC for BotW.
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Just because you are starting from a base does not mean that the game will magically be done faster. This is more true now then back then with HD development. Covid also didn’t help in this. We also do not know the scope or how their engine decided to play with the new changes implemented. And, no what they have shown & patented does not look like it could have been implemented in BoTW as dlc without significant changes somewhere in that engine.
Selarmor said:
If this game were coming out in 2020 what they've shown would be acceptable, but after this long people's expectations are much higher, and nothing they've shown us suggests those expectations will be met.

Will this game meet those expectations? Probably, but if so, show us. People are clearly starting to doubt it.
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Who are we defining as people. It has the same energy as this
arrested-development-david-cross.gif

Selarmor said:
The majority don't watch Nintendo Directs or Treehouse streams. They see or hear about a Zelda game and buy it. These trailers and demos are aimed at people like us, and we then generate the positive word of mouth that spreads to the majority.
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As we saw with Pokémon, twice now, don’t know if people like us are that necessary in spreading word of mouth for a game like Zelda. Overall impressions from the Direct have been stellar. It is being viewed a lot right now.
 
They can get away with it because it's Zelda, but I'm not a fan. If I didn't have such unbridled faith in EPD3, I'd be seriously concerned about Tears of the Kingdom. The hook for the game is still that it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild, rather than having something of its own to get people excited.
 
50/50

The trailer they showed yesterday was another ho hum trailer....wish it was bombastic like the switch presentation one.

One the other hand I'm glad they're keeping it secret cause I pretty much spoiled my self with the original botw cause of that E3 2016
 
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Nintendo's silence is always frustrating, and this time even more so than usual. But, it also won't impact the game's success in any way, and isn't a sign of anything one way or the other
 
Some bits have worked for me, some bits haven't. Overall I would like them to use a different approach in future.
I like how cryptic the trailers are.
I don't like how many years it has been going on for. It gives far too much time for followers to form their own ideas about what the game might be, which are probably incorrect.
I also think that they've shown far too much content. There are so many mechanics, enemies, set pieces etc. being shown that now won't be surprising when the game is actually played.
At the same time, I feel the narrative hook has been buried under all that content. From my understanding, the Zelda franchise is based on the hero going on an adventure to defeat the antagonist. We know the antagonist, we don't know what adventure Link is going on apart from playing around in sky islands. Maybe this is more a criticism of the game concept rather than its marketing, I had the same criticism of BotW.
A dedicated story trailer, a dedicated mechanics trailer, etc. would be more effective I think.
 
Pennington said:
Some bits have worked for me, some bits haven't. Overall I would like them to use a different approach in future.
I like how cryptic the trailers are.
I don't like how many years it has been going on for. It gives far too much time for followers to form their own ideas about what the game might be, which are probably incorrect.
I also think that they've shown far too much content. There are so many mechanics, enemies, set pieces etc. being shown that now won't be surprising when the game is actually played.
At the same time, I feel the narrative hook has been buried under all that content. From my understanding, the Zelda franchise is based on the hero going on an adventure to defeat the antagonist. We know the antagonist, we don't know what adventure Link is going on apart from playing around in sky islands. Maybe this is more a criticism of the game concept rather than its marketing, I had the same criticism of BotW.
A dedicated story trailer, a dedicated mechanics trailer, etc. would be more effective I think.
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Well, this game was meant to come out forever ago, so it wasn't supposed to be going for so long.
 
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Just a few points:

- The reveal of long form gameplay for the original BOTW at E3 2016 Treehouse was really the thing that sold and cemented the potential of its emergent and flexible gameplay systems, including the built-in chemistry stuff with fire and electricity and how they interact with a whole bunch of other elements in the game. No trailer by itself can effectively communicate this. A lot of what's going to make TotK stand out is how deeply the new concepts and mechanics they've shown so far (or not yet) interact with the world in creative and explorative ways. We'll have to wait until a treehouse or hands-on previews until we can get a good sense of that. But even one simple new gameplay mechanic can have rippling effects across a lot of the already established systems.

- I think we've seen enough to get a good idea of what the development team's main creative goals are with the TotK. Though quite a few people are using the phrase "BotW in the sky" condescendingly, they are correct in the sense that, while the first BotW explored all the interesting and creative ways you can traverse and make your way across the land, always offering curious new sights and experiences on the horizon, with the sequel I think it's clear they want bring that sense of exploration and experimentation to the Y-axis. That means going up and going down. Capturing that sense of going underground, as well as elevating to every greater heights. In fact, I think the main goal and progression (similar to reaching Hyrule castle in the first game), is getting to ever higher points in the sky, trying to attain a certain apex, maybe the moon itself (which is featured quite prominently in the latest trailer). A lot of the new mechanics we've seen so far are centered around making vertical traversal (both up and down) interesting.

- The green goo building mechanic is going to be big. This is obviously going to be a huge part of this game and a continuation of the creative freedom philosophy that the first game is so well known for. Just looking at the vehicle that Link creates, you can see that every part of that thing, including the wooden boards, are glued together. What is the potential here? - We've seen you can also use inflated balloons and propellers, as well as the two types of wheels. There's also headlights glued to the thing, which Link is using in broad daylight for some reason. How many other things can be attached? Imagine driving that thing into a Bokoblin hoard. Imagine attaching some balloons to it and driving off a cliff. The creative team for this game has doubled down on this sandbox mentality, and if you now have both a horizontal and an increased vertical dimension to play around in, that greatly expands the ways the game can challenge the player to find ever more creative methods of traversal.
 
I think it was always an option to push the release out to around 6 years. Call me cynical but I've seen this timeline stretching from Nintendo a lot. It's always disappointing, literally.
@SpookyTango I think what you mention about adding another axis to the exploration may also relate to what they're doing with the new systems. If BOTW's chemistry engine was 2D (if you do x, y happens) TOTK might be 3D (if you do x, y happens but z also is affected). Just a thought, as it looks even more interactive and player-driven than its predecessor.
 
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