Top 10 Gaming Marketing Lies

If it’s on the Internet, it must be true, right?! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Gaming Marketing Lies. For this list, we’re looking at times when the truth was stretched just a little bit too far in the effort to promote a game or brand. Prepare to feel utterly cheated all over again!

#10: Misleading Trailer

“Dead Island” (2011) Now, while we all expect a little embellishment on game trailers to heighten expectations and enhance sales, a line is crossed when a trailer starts dishing out misleading claims. Gamers’ first glimpse of the “Dead Island” franchise back in 2011 came via an emotional and tense trailer depicting the game as a tale of survival and tragedy. But, in reality, “Dead Island’s” gameplay was light on story and heavy on action, leading to little emotion and lots of zombie-bashing chaos. When gamers complained that they felt mislead by the first trailer, the game’s publisher – Deep Silver – rejected such claims. But, to anyone who’s played the game and seen the trailer, it’s hard not to feel like the butt of a bad joke…

#9: Kinect is the Future

Xbox One Here’s how NOT to market an unnecessary gadget for a home console system: claim it’s not an option and it costs more; say it always has to be connected to even use the system; and then try to push it as the future of gaming. Yes folks, that was the genius strategy behind the now defunct Xbox Kinect. It turns out that none of these claims were true (except it costing more), but Microsoft only admitted such after it was pummeled in sales by the PS4. Turns out the Kinect wasn’t that necessary after all, seeing as the Xbox One S launched without the port to even connect the damn thing back in 2016, with adaptors for the Kinect being discontinued a year later.

#8: Visual Downgrade

“Watch Dogs” (2014) That first trailer for “Watch Dogs” back at E3 2012 caused a lot of jaws to collectively hit the floor; and, subsequently, a lot of anger when the game finally released two years later. It was clear that it just didn’t look as good on PS4 and Xbox One as it did in that initial trailer. That’s because the game lauded at E3 was running on a SUPER powerful PC (even by today’s standards), and existed before a time when developers really knew how powerful the upcoming next generation of hardware would be – let alone how to actively get the most out of it. Sure, Ubisoft showed off the best version of the game they could; the problem was it wasn’t based in reality.

#7: Power of the Cloud

“Crackdown 3” (2019) Microsoft’s marketing campaign surrounding the so-called "power of the cloud" made some incredible claims in 2013 – including being able to quadruple the power of the Xbox One – but six years later it hasn’t lived up to the hype. So, why the demo for “Crackdown 3” chose to once again start pushing the cloud hype is beyond us. Yes, that demo looked amazing, but the final version of bears little resemblance to what was initially shown. Oddly, it’s just one case of false advertising after another surrounding this game, as – to raise hype before its release – its star Terry Crews described it as a “Terry Crews Simulator,” and… well, sure the main character is played by Terry Crews, but he’s playing the character of Commander Jaxon, not himself!

#6: 16 Times the Detail

“Fallout 76” (2018) It’s pretty safe to say that “Fallout 76” was an epic letdown, and didn’t live up to any of the hype that Bethesda’s Todd Howard heaped upon it at E3 months before its release. These claims were many, but the most misleading was that how new technology allowed it to run at sixteen times the detail of past Bethesda games. Really? Was he looking at the right game!? “Fallout 76” can look okay at the best of times, but overall it's actually a step back in the graphics department for Bethesda. Perhaps if Howard had said one or two times the detail we’d not feel so cheated; but, sixteen times?! Come on man…give us a break!

#5: Blast Processing

Sega Genesis Back in the Sega versus Nintendo days of the Early 90s, both companies pulled out all the stops to get the advantage on their competitor – including outright lies. The Sega Genesis boasted “Blast Processing” (supposedly an exclusive hardware feature) that was supposed to give it an edge over the Super Nintendo, but didn’t actually exist. It was a total buzzword, and it became a PR scheme to make people think the Genesis was more powerful. Granted, the Genesis did have a faster CPU speed than the SNES, but to claim it had some secret weapon technology was totally bogus.

#4: Fake Footage

“Killzone 2” (2009) There was a lot of speculation on just how powerful the PS3 would be back in the mid-2000s, and when the first trailer for “Killzone 2” dropped at E3 2005, its jaw-dropping footage confirmed our highest hopes of what the next-gen console could do…except it didn’t. It turns out the trailer wasn’t using actual gameplay footage. Oopsie! A high-ranking member within Guerrilla Games mistakenly boasted that the trailer was running on PS3 hardware, during a time when most devs didn’t even have access to PS3 hardware yet (or barely just started testing it). Chalk this one up to a bit of misleading marketing, but also poor communication within Guerrilla at the time. But, hey, all was forgiven when they made “Horizon Zero Dawn,” right?

#3: YouTubers Paid to Like Xbox One

While we fully expect huge companies like Microsoft to manipulate marketing strategies in their favor, it’s still enraging to see the details of such campaigns laid bare for all to see. Such was the case when Microsoft paid YouTubers more for including more than thirty seconds of Xbox One footage in their videos, mentioning the console directly, and, of course, not making any critical comments about the system or its games. Sure, YouTubers rely on sponsored ads all the time, so how was this different? Well, the videos in question were not marked as paid advertisements – or advertisements at all. Once the story came to light, Microsoft forced creators to mark these videos as paid advertisements, but only AFTER the story leaked online. Typical.

#2: Everything Peter Molyneux Says

Remember the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? Well, Peter Molyneux’s career is kind of like that. Here’s the lesson: if you keep making false statements about your games (some bordering on outright ridiculous), people will just stop believing you and, more often than not, stop listening – regardless of your past history of creating important titles. Sure, he’s apologized after making such false claims – such as promising that you could have children in “Fable” and launching crowd funding initiatives that didn't deliver – but what does an apology mean when it’s constantly followed by more apologies? Each apology cheapens the last, and, finally, your word is as good as dirt. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions: Atari Jaguar is 64 Bit Bungie’s “Destiny” Promises Daikatana

#1: So Many Things

“No Man’s Sky” (2016) There’s no doubt that Sean Murray was very excited about “No Man’s Sky;” to the point where he ended up making promises he just couldn’t keep. It’s been almost three years since “No Man’s Sky’s” uber-controversial launch, with a lot of the original promises being delivered since then, all to Murray and Hello Games’ credit. Instead of running away from their over-ambitious marketing mistakes before the game’s launch, they got right back to work to deliver on what they set out to make. Sure, they angered a lot of people in the process and left something of a stigma upon their product, but hopefully the lesson behind “No Man’s Sky” will be one of redemption and not one of hate in the years to come.