It turns out that the popularity of Hi-Fi Rush was pretty much set in stone after all. The game’s director, John Johanas, spoke to IGN recently about the reason behind the shadow drop of the game that defied usual gaming marketing. That reason was that the game became quite popular internally, and the marketing team thought that essentially this result could be replicated on a grander scale.
The Hi-Fi Rush Director talked about why the game would be shadow dropped during Xbox’s Developer Direct. He stated that the decision came from the game’s marketing team in part because of uncertainty about how a longer marketing cycle might play out. How did they know that this shadow drop would work? Because they already had evidence that proved it to be true.
According to the director, this was actually the way the game became popular at Bethesda:
Some people had played it and they spoke about it to their other [colleagues]. They’re like, ‘Did you see that game that they’re making there?’ There’s this weird sort of viral positivity to this just playing this game, and Game Pass just felt like an excellent opportunity to let something…lose that skepticism immediately by just playing it and people just talking about it.
It certainly seems like this was the right approach. Many players would look at an announcement such as Hi-Fi Rush’s and often forget about it, especially with the slew of heavy hitters that are going to be released this year. The marketing team realized that since Tango was well-known for its horror games, releasing a game that isn’t just that would lead to some uncertain outcome. As such, it would be better to release the game and also put it on Xbox Game Pass.
This decision paid off big time for the Hi-Fi Rush developers, as the game became one of the most popular games this month. This shadow drop became one of Steam’s best sellers, beating out games like Destiny 2, Grand Theft Auto V, and even recently, the highly anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game was expected to gain its popularity through sudden word of mouth, much like with Bethesda and it worked perfectly.
Hi-Fi Rush is currently available on Xbox Series X|S and PC.
