They call it “shadow drop” and it’s basically the surprise launch of a game on the market, in many cases of a previously known title but in others, as we have seen with Hi-Fi Rush, even of totally unknown products. Obviously, it is not the first time we have seen it in action, given that in particular Nintendo has often and willingly used this system to launch small indie games during its various Directs, but the case represented by the Tango Gameworks and Bethesda game is particular and could be part of an interesting strategy for the future. The surprise launch substantially bypasses a good part of the marketing, or even eliminates it almost completely if it concerns absolutely new and unknown products. On the one hand this represents a big risk, but on the other it cuts away a series of possible negative elements that can derive from the harmful effects of hype and expectation.
Last but not least, it completely eliminates reviews as a filter between users and video games, because obviously these can only arrive after the release of the title on the market and, at least, cannot influence early adopters. Obviously, such a leap in the dark is difficult to ask when associated with an 80 euro price tag, and this is where the Game Pass, which is the best context ever to propose such an approach. In a certain sense, this too is a consequence of the changes introduced by the Microsoft service in the gaming market: the paradigm shift from the quantity of copies sold to “engagement”, i.e. the investment of time on games, can exploit other means to increase the visibility that is not necessarily the pounding advertisements or promotional communication.
For a service that relies on a freely accessible catalogue, thenovelty effect is of great importance in focusing attention on a game, and a surprise release, even at the same time as a surprise announcement, can be an excellent strategy. Obviously it remains a risky system and certainly not very suitable for large-scale projects, if only for the impossibility of keeping some games secret during the development phases due to their size, the notoriety of the developers or the expectations of the players in the in the case of already established franchises. However, the shadow drop can work for small projects, which coincidentally also find an ideal space in the context of the Game Pass and in this way could receive additional visibility and immediately reach what has become an important goal in the context of the ” all you can play”, be played by as many people as possible.
Based on what we can see so far with Hi-Fi Rush, the system seems to have worked: it is possible that a title like this, coming from a rather famous team and becoming an Xbox first party could have had a more negative impact following the traditional process, given that there is a tendency to want the traditional triple A from the major producers. In this way, instead, starting from zero expectations, the effect was only positive. It is not said that the system will be reused, also because it is not easy for a project to remain totally secret as happened in this case, but it could possibly be associated well with the other minor projects that, probably, will come from the many first party teams of Xbox Game Studios. On the other hand, another known effect of the advent of Xbox Game Pass is the rediscovery of medium-sized productions and the space offered to “passion projects” by developers, all elements that seem to converge towards a new way of understanding the market.
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