About
Hype Train is a slang term popular within the video gamer community to express the excitement experienced when something new from a popular franchise or development company is first announced, including new games, movies, TV series or other related merchandises. Image macros containing the phrase like these are usualy shared in comments on gaming news sites and forums to show one’s support of the hype. Alternatively, if the object at hand fails to live up to the hype, it can be said that the Hype Train has crashed.
Origin
The term was used as early as November 26th, 2002 on the gaming review site IGN[1] in a review of the Japanese version of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire[2] which was not released in the US until March 2003. Author Craig Harris explained that they received copies of the game to “get the hype train moving,” noting that he had trouble navigating through it as he did not speak Japanese. His review also suggest that Nintendo products print money, which was later popularized in the 2004 Newgrounds flash Decline of Video Gaming 2.[3]
Nintendo today sent us a copy of both Japanese versions of Pokemon for the Game Boy Advance, most definitely to get the hype train moving early. But it’s not like the game’s going to need the hype, since releasing the game is, essentially, a license to print money for the company.
Spread
By March 2004, the term had expanded outside of the gaming community, as it was used in a comment on a blog post noting that the popularity of programming language SmallTalk was “derailed by the Java hype-train.”[4]
Search Interest
External References
[1]IGN– Pokemon Advance
[2]Wikipedia – Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire
[3]Newgrounds – Decline of Video Gaming 2
[4]Codito Ergo Sum – Smalltalk gained popularity in the mid-90s, and was derailed by the Java hype-train.