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29Jan 13

Complaining follows.

So I turn on my Xbox to play my 160th hour of Dark Souls, and I'm greeted by this on the main dashboard page:

Xbox

Sleeper hits. Far Cry 3 is a sleeper hit.

Xbox dashboard editor: F*ck you. Shove your article up your ass. Far Cry 3 is not a sleeper hit. It's a game with a budget, marketing effort, and production staff larger than many films, and it's developed and produced by one of the biggest companies in the industry. It is the polar opposite of a sleeper hit.

Where does nonsense like this come from? Do some gamers want to pretend that they're appreciating something artsy and independent, while they are in fact playing the very definition of a mainstream title? Here's what this reminds me of: In college, about 50% of the girls I ever went out with claimed to love "hole in the wall bars." When asked to identify a "hole in the wall bar," they would invariably list some gigantic monstrosity of a bar on Bardstown Road, one of the main nightlife areas in Louisville. Guess what: If a bar has two separate dance floors, four bars, shot girls wandering around everywhere, and a line at the door, it's not a goddamn hole in the wall bar.

So yeah, I think that's what it is: People want to imagine that they are a connoisseur, someone who appreciates things rare and subtle, even if they are in fact a common, mass-market consumer. And also, Xbox dashboard editor: F*ck you. Take Far Cry 3 and put it where your article goes.

4 comments
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vashkey
vashkey

Yeah, I bitched about this on twitter.  I think their definition of sleeper hit is "did not sell five million units".  If you hit the tab it listed a bunch of other big budget games like Darksiders 2 and Sleeping Dogs

iowastate
iowastate

Far Cry 3 a sleeper hit - you made a great point once again

raahsnavj
raahsnavj like.author.displayName 1 Like

This is so true it almost hurts. I heard of this other shooter game that was pretty unknown as well, borderlanders 2 or something like that. /sarcasm

I would also add that the very definition of sleeper hit doesn't come with a 2, 3, or 4 on the end of it...

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