Talk:Episodes, films, and shorts/@comment-26973802-20150310215225/@comment-10390252-20150312111454

Yeah, the same reviews agree that, if the whole 'Equestria Games' build-up hadn't been there, most people would consider it a good Spike focus episode. The problem was that there had been this build-up.

The mistake that DHX (unwittingly) made is that Games Ponies Play and Flight to the Finish created a hype for the Games, an event that they had never actually planned to follow up in detail. This was made worse with the now-notorious "Equestria Games 2014" poster, which strongly implied that it would be a major event in season 4 when it was not and, likely, was never intended to be.

Sometimes, creating hype can be a bad thing.

Personally, if I'd been in Hasbro's marketing and had been keeping an eye on fans' expectations on social media, I would have warned DHX of this. Maybe they could have dropped Somepony... and possibly Trade Ya to extend the Equestria Games mini arc a little. There are lots of friendship and ethics stories that you can tell at a large sporting event, if you want to.