The reaction to this week’s State of Play has been, well, muted to put it kindly. And, to be honest, the metrics on YouTube have reflected that: most of the games shown have failed to crack even 100k views at the time of writing. But there was one major winner on the night: the ever-present Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach has amassed 522k views, with more sure to come.
Here are the trailer statistics, accurate at the time of writing:
- Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach: 522k
- Star Ocean: The Divine Force: 160k
- Little Devil Inside: 151k
- Deathverse: Let It Die: 65k
- First Class Trouble: 61k
- The King of Fighters XV: 61k
- Bugsnax: The Isle of Bigsnax: 46k
- We Are OFK: 46k
- Death’s Door: 44k
- KartRider: Drift: 37k
The numbers aren’t terrible in isolation, but State of Play tends to generate trailers that amass views in the millions, so they are disappointing by that metric. An enormous 1.1 million overall tuned in to watch the stream in English, but the number of downvotes has accelerated in the hours since the show, with 8.8k expressing their dislike.
In our Push Square poll, an overwhelming 43 per cent said they felt the latest State of Play was Very Poor, with a further 31 per cent saying it was Poor. That’s a total of 74 per cent who disliked the latest show – not particularly palatable reading for the bigwigs on Sony’s social media team. How do you feel about it in the cold light of day?
Comments 19
Are we really going to go through this again? For something you don't even think should exist you sure do like to bring it up 🙄😆
We've had a Talking Point so if this is a rehash of that here is my definitive view from there, and frankly I'm still surprised how narrow-minded some people can be.
'Sony told people not to expect too much, after all it was a month after a big Sony show. They told us to not expect fireworks so to speak. Even staff here complained that SoP was no good, and this stuff is their livelihood! I don't understand how more communication like this from any platform manufacturer is a waste of time. People actually said Sony may as well have announced all this in a blog. How is that preferable to a nice video showcase presentation? Plus there were some decent games there!!! Little Devil Inside looked absolutely charming! And Star Ocean was a nice surprise as was Death's Door.
Seriously, the level of selfish entitlement here is eye opening. Just because there wasn't something they liked the whole thing should be scrapped and Sony are wrong for doing it. Such cynicism. They can't like this hobby as much as they think. It was a 20 minute show, a little teaser, a pleasant package put together to highlight some 3rd party developer's work who will benefit from the extra, focussed exposure. It was as much for their benefit as ours. But no, we shouldn't have that, and those devs shouldn't get to showcase their games because some people don't like it, so sod the rest of us and Sony too.'
I couldn't care less what people on YouTube say, like as if they or Twitter are a barometer for anything other than something useful to pluck stats and comments to fit whatever picture people want to paint.
There's nothing wrong with Sony choosing to communicate more with their fanbase in a more expressive and personal manner than a blog or email, and if it helps developers along the way by highlighting their work than why should we look down our noses at it. Do we like this hobby or not? Why are we looking for ways to denigrate it when soe extra effort is made. Sony already had a big show last month, they didn't need to do this too. And yet they did and I appreciate that even if not all the games shown were something I would play. The world doesn't revolve around me and I'm mature enough to recognise that.
Thats how I feel about it in the cold light of day. I look forward to being asked again 😊👍
I know it wasn't the best show, but FNAF leading the pack like that has me rooting for the apocalypse. It's more than 3x Star Ocean which was a brand new reveal. 🤪
If the State of Plays were more frequent and we had game reveals and such more often this wouldn’t have felt so bad.
Sony’s building this reputation for silence and every 6 months dropping something…..well that something better be big and not crap like this.
@Integrity Not sure what you're referring to?
Guys, don't sleep on Death's Door! It's a 9-10 game!!!
FNAF fans seem to be eating pretty hearty the last few years, with the VR game being a huge success and the new game looking to really shake up the formula.
I mean I think it was a good show for them to show third party games that I feel like they had to promote.
Little Devil Inside is going to be be great, FNAF is going to sell no matter what.
Star Ocean is Star ocean lol. and Death's Door is amazng supposedly.
I don't see what the problem is? Sony didn't say anything big was going to be there, and when they announced a in depth look at Little Devil Inside, people should have known what to expect.
I'm just glad star ocean got some kind of exposure. I'd rather see it and other games like it in state of plays and showcases
@get2sammyb well there an article with a debate going on about this already which is interesting to read and participate in. To start another one kind of makes a mockery of getting a Talking Point article going in the first place. Honest feedback Sammy.
@Integrity But the point of this article is to show the trailer views, which ones got the most attention, and also feedback those poll results.
I'm probably in the minority who thought the State of Play wasn't poor. However, my big issue with it is that Sony really needs to start labeling some of these State of Plays beyond saying what won't be in one in the blog post. Nintendo clearly delineates their Directs between indie ones, third-party ones, and big event ones. Sony needs to do something like that. The quality of the titles shown is purely subjective, but I think most people can agree that this State of Play was unnecessary, and these game reveals and announcements could have been simple blog posts sprinkled throughout a day.
Not surprised with FNaF being the most viewed for sure. It's a series with the largest crowd arguably being children. And many children (including my younger sibling) spend an unhealthy amount of time on YouTube.
@get2sammyb ok..so this is to get feedback on the feedback? 😆 OK fair enough 😊 👍 I thought the comment section on the original article was the feedback on the poll as the results are viewable from the off. No problem Sammy, totally mia culpa. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Doesn't matter, I think I'm still smarting at how it is possible to hold 2 conflicting opinions, a cognitive dissonance, whereby people want platform holders to maintain lines of communication with the fans but would want to deny them that if what the have to say doesn't meet their own very selective and personal tastes for what should be said, ignoring the fact that it would not only be a disservice to people who do appreciate it but also to the developers who's hard work is being rewarded with extra attention. Phew....that was a long sentence.
Well duh it was the only cool thing during the entire show
@RBMango they said it would be third party games, and people complaining about the games shown have to think whether they had to promote them. They obviously have a media deal for the FNAF game and Little Devil Inside. Star Ocean is kind of a big deal(for fans of that game), and King of Fighters deserves the beta announcement in a trailer since people have been waiting for that game for years.
Fnaf is just one of the more popular games in the state of play
@Integrity
I'm gonna boil it down to two words: expectation management.
They tried to let people know ahead of time in a way, when they said it was gonna be a showcase for third party games only. But as other people pointed out, indie showcase would have been more appropriate and accurate description.
I like indies. But I agree with a lot of others that 'State of Play' has become a moniker that is too general really. And that goes back to expectation management - you dont know WHAT you are gonna get in these things, and that's a messaging issue. So people will hype themselves up (that is partially their own fault) and are inevitably disappointed.
I wouldn't advocate "just do a blog post". People put work into these games and they should get exposure. But 'Indie State of Play' would serve two good purposes - (1. It would kill 80% of the complaints you saw right out of the gate, (2. It would attract more people who are specifically interested in indie titles (we exist). This would get exposure and views up for those lesser known games.
In summary, they could have done so, so much better if they added one word - Indie - to the showcase title or description. Not this vague "third party games" business. They have actually done indie-focused States of Play in the past, and they telegraphed that ahead of time and it went over alright! Never great, mind you... but better than this.
It's a basic messaging error. Combined with people with poor impulse control, and well... this happens.
Highlights for me were Death's Door and Little Devil Inside. That makes it a good video in my book.
Not that surprising, the trailer is already at 1.9 million views now, as of my comment.
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