9 Reasons You Shouldn't Have Faith In The Video Game Industry

4. 'Vertical Slice' Initial Reveals Are Unrepresentative Of Finished Products

While media events like E3 are always good fun, they don't exactly provide an accurate representation of upcoming video games. After years and years of trailers and gameplay reveals that look nothing like the eventual finished product, anything you see in the build-up to a game's release, no matter how much of surefire thing it seems to be or how close to the release date it is, should be treated with a tablespoon of salt. It might not be the biggest problem, but when was the last time a new video game didn't suffer a visual downgrade in the time between its first reveal and hitting store shelves? Ubisoft is particularly bad for this, but even the more respected developers like The Witcher 3's CD Projekt RED routinely show off graphics that never actually make it into the final game. While graphical downgrades wont make or break a product (or shouldn't, anyway), the secrecy and faux-explanations surrounding these news stories aid in creating an uneasy atmosphere of distrust that sticks with a title even after launch.