Developers urge indie devs not to follow in Hi-Fi Rush\u2019s footsteps Hi-Fi Rush has received immense praise since its shadow drop on January 25, but developers are urging indie devs not to follow in its footsteps despite its success. Shadow drops are admittedly some of the most exciting events in the gaming industry. Gamers often anticipate releases for months, building up hype that games may or may not live up to. And this cycle of reveal, build-up, and release can become arduous. So, when a shiny new game is revealed during a showcase, and a corporate suit says, \u201cand it releases\u2026 today!\u201d of course, it\u2019s going to cause a stir. Developers and publishers bypass the monotonous cycle of game releases, making it easier for their games to be well-received when there aren\u2019t any expectations. Knowing this, why don\u2019t more developers shadow-drop their games? Well, despite the success of the recently stealth-dropped Hi-Fi Rush, many developers are urging indie devs not to follow in its footsteps, claiming marketing is still the key to a successful launch. \u201cIndies, do not do this\u201d Like clockwork, the praise for Hi-Fi Rush was joined in tandem with the sentiment that more developers should shadow-drop their games. As PC Gamer put it, \u201cMore game releases to be treated like a Beyonc\u00e9 album drop.\u201d This brought developers out of the woodwork to share why they thought this wasn\u2019t good advice. Developer Alex Rose retweeted PC Gamer stating, \u201cIndies, do not do this. you are not Beyonce and you are not Xbox, I am praying that you market your game and don\u2019t just drop it and hope it sells\u201d. Rose wasn\u2019t alone, as Philip Tibitoski \u2013 creator of Bugsnax and Octodad \u2013 also shared his own advice, \u201cDon\u2019t shadow drop your game out of the blue unless you have great 1st party support, an excellent pre-existing reputation as a studio, and an exclusivity deal of some kind that\u2019s fully paid for the dev of that game already.\u201d While many assume Hi-Fi Rush is an indie title that\u2019s just so happened to launch to success, that isn\u2019t the case. The game was developed by Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within 1&2, Ghostwire Tokyo), and was published by Bethesda Softworks (Fallout, Doom, Deathloop). It was also available on day one on Xbox Game Pass and had multiple front-page advertisements on Xbox consoles. This train of thought made its way around the comments of various posts on Twitter. A surprise drop only works if \u201cyou\u2019re already famous\u201d or \u201cif you have a massive backing to push through the noise.\u201d It was also shared by one of the members of the Hi-Fi Rush team. Kelly (@kelllombardi), the Global Product Marketer at Xbox, expressed that there isn\u2019t a \u201cone size fits all\u201d marketing approach. \u201cWas surprise dropping Hi-Fi the right call? One thousand percent yes,\u201d she stated, \u201cDoes that mean it\u2019ll work for every game? No.\u201d She advised that developers trust the process. While a shadow drop was the right call for Hi-Fi Rush, Kelly claims it can be the perfect recipe for a mediocre product when applied to others. This Hi-Fi Rush controversy is reminiscent of Vidoegamedunkey\u2019s Big Mode announcement. Many spectators jumped the gun, claiming Dunkey would fail because he had \u201cno experience\u201d in the gaming industry. Gamers are again jumping to rash conclusions, this time stating that traditional marketing should be scrapped and replaced exclusively by shadow drops. But as Kelly stated, that won\u2019t work for everyone. Eager indie developers seeing the success of Hi-Fi Rush should heed the advice of experienced devs, trust the process, and do what\u2019s best for their game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Developers urge indie devs not to follow in Hi-Fi Rush\u2019s footsteps Hi-Fi Rush has received immense praise since its shadow drop on January 25, but developers are urging indie devs not to follow in its footsteps despite its success. Shadow drops are admittedly some of the most exciting events in the gaming industry. Gamers often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}