What Did You Expect?

The weight of expectation can crush you, but only if you let other people define success.



An NBC commentator said this tonight in a profile of swimmer Natalie Coughlin. It's advice that Michael Phelps -- and some of the journalists covering him -- might take to heart.



Hours after Phelps earned a bronze in the 200M freestyle -- thus ensuring that he won't meet Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in an Olympics -- some members of the press have been quick to revel in his "failure":



MSNBC: "Phelps could still win six gold medals. But because his audacious challenge fell short, he could be remembered as something of a failure at the Athens Games -- the same perception that dogged Matt Biondi after he won “only” five golds at the 1988 Seoul Games."



The Guardian: "The 19-year-old American saw his dream of matching Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals sink last night just 24 hours after his even more extravagant ambition of exceeding it had been thwarted..."



AP/San Francisco Chronicle: "All those things Phelps achieved in the run-up to the Athens Games, those too-young-to-be-true wins and records, those splashes at the U.S. trials that stopped your breath like a stopwatch -- those are already forgotten."



To be fair, many other sources have pointed out that Phelps has already met his own expectations -- and any reasonable expectations about him -- in earning five medals in five events (so far).



But why the huge buildup of record-breaking expectation in the first place? As The Miami Herald eloquently put it, "we love hype. We eat it up. We build it up. We go along, ignoring the warning signs of letdown. We make bloated comparisons - Ruthian, Jordanesque, Spitzistic - knowing full well how difficult they are to live up to."



Which brings us to what I hope you saw coming (if you've ever read this blog) as an effective parallel to videogame journalism.



The hype around Phelps was probably partially created by outside interests -- a boastful coach, an overzealous agent, his corporate sponsor -- but it was largely a creation of the media. The journalists saw the list of events Phelps was qualified for, did the math, and determined that the potential for a world-record number of gold medals made for a good storyline. Never mind that Phelps himself said that he was aiming for only one gold medal (although later, even he got caught up in the hype)... once the press machine latches on to a good storyline, it doesn't let go easily.



The videogame situation is often similar. Public Relations departments do their fair share of pushing, but it's usually the media that takes a look at an upcoming game, compares it to video game history, and declares it the next big thing. It doesn't matter how humble the developer is or how farthe game is from completion... once the conventional wisdom takes hold, it's hard to counteracts.



The big difference in the videogame world is that the hype can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. While the cold, hard numbers force sports journalsits to accept the fact that Michael Phelps can't set a new world record in Olympic gold medals, there is usually no such objective data to take into account with videogames. The hype-induced aura around a game often lasts through the review cycle and all the way into print -- especially if the reviewers rush through the game to get a "world exclusive first review."



It could be argued that this phenomenon affected the scoring trend for Driv3r, which got some very good reviews immediately after release (including some that were highly suspect) before being eviscerated in many later reviews.



New York Post: "Setting such a high expectation is not a good marketing tactic," said Jed Pearsall, president of sports marketing firm Performance Research. "If an athlete doesn't achieve it, they're perceived to have failed, even when they performed well."