Today we watch trailers of upcoming movies and games. But in the early age of the internet you couldn’t freely share video, so game developers had to write press releases.
The press release was an important promise to the world. Not only were they used to build hype, but they were also used to help developers actually build the games.
In January 1993, the creators of DOOM released a press release which has become iconic, as it claimed:
This is the first game to really exploit the power of LANs and modems to their full potential. In 1993, we fully expect to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world.
The developers had a very clear vision of what their audience wanted and they understood their creative and technical capabilities. But the game was yet to be built. So making a promise to the world was a very effective way to get the team to complete the project.
The game was released in December of 1993, and it changed video game history forever.
Imagine if you started your year with a press release to the world. What would you promise by the end of the year?
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