• by Shankar Gupta , November 23, 2007

Over the weekend, I completed "Assassin's Creed," which according to reports is the hottest-selling new IP in the last five years. The game, while somewhat repetitive, was a great technological achievement, modeling three medieval cities in gorgeous detail, and an engaging gameplay experience. Many, many players share that opinion.

But many, many players have developed an intense hatred for the game, even without playing it. This hatred was sublimated this week in a Web comic that depicted "Assassin's Creed" producer Jade Raymond offering sexual favors to gamers who purchased the game. Ubisoft is busy stamping the cartoon out as quickly as people can repost it, and I haven't seen it, but people whom I trust have described it as "disgusting," and "utterly vile," and expressed the sentiment that the people who created it should be "beaten bloody."

From where does this hatred stem? It all comes down to how "Assassin's Creed" has been marketed. The game has been on the community's radar for a long time, and it was definitely one of the most anticipated titles of the year. But the game had a poor first showing at E3, which brought into question Ubisoft's ability to live up to its ambitions and deliver on the hype that was rapidly building around the game. Post-E3, Ubisoft released a series of gameplay videos hosted by Raymond and her colleague Patrice Desilets, showing off the progress "Assassin's Creed" had made since E3.

In a sales sense, this strategy was golden, as is evidenced by the game's sales. But the move also created an enormous amount of negative buzz in online forums -- message boards, blogs, and elsewhere -- which very much puzzled me. Gamers felt that Ubisoft was continuing to hype an inferior product, that the gameplay footage was not indicative of the overall experience, and that the gaming public was being bilked into buying a crummy game. Their rage built, finally culminating in a misogynistic fury against Raymond.

I found this confusing. Gamers were punishing marketers for marketing a game exactly how we should want them marketed -- lots of gameplay footage and lots of examinations and explanations of how the game looks, feels and plays. Gamers accuse "Assassin's Creed" of being overhyped, but Ubisoft marketed the game on a shoestring budget compared to other titles launched this year: "Assassin's Creed" had no Mountain Dew tie-in, no Web-spanning ARG, no huge publicity stunts.

The way I see it, the sort of reaction "Assassin's Creed" had to suffer stems from the instinctive distrust that people, and especially gamers, have towards upfront marketing. Roundabout marketing like TV ads, product tie-ins, and the like seem to slide under the radar, but when a game developer says something about a game, they can't possibly be sincere. Couple that with an intense desire to appear independent and free-thinking (without the intellectual burden of actually being that way), and you have the bulk of the "Assassin's Creed" haters. It's a juvenile attitude the gaming community would be wise to leave behind.