I hate game trailers

[Guild McCommunist]

WoW is a rather poor example. It doesn't really sell based on its gameplay. I actually don't know why it sells. But when they make expansions, they know what they're selling to: people who still play WoW or previously played WoW. For anyone who hasn't, it just gets them interested in the universe.

It's also a MMO and would you really love to see a trailer of a taskbar and some mindless mashing of it? MMOs are incredibly boring by their nature, even when they show the gameplay it's just ever-so-skewed to make it look fun.

I'd like you to show me a game with no cutscenes that has purely cinematic based trailers.

I don't see games trying to falsely draw in their customers by completely keep gameplay under wraps and just going "LOOK AT THESE CINEMATICS!" We live in an age where if we want to try a game, we can download a demo. They make trailers for the game's story and some key gameplay but so much of the press is done by sites like IGN who will do a longer playthrough or feed of the game.

There's simply no need for every trailer to be gameplay focused. And I can hardly think of a single game that hasn't even bothered producing a gameplay trailer or releasing some sort of gameplay press.

 

[Taleweaver]

I don't see games trying to falsely draw in their customers by completely keep gameplay under wraps and just going "LOOK AT THESE CINEMATICS!"

this one begs to differ.


When I saw that, I honestly thought it was something thrown together by anti-video game groups in an attempt to show how pathetic modern gamers really are.


On the plus side...they can recycle that same clip for about half the spunkgarbleweewee modern warfare games. All they have to do is replace the last ten seconds with the cover of a different one.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Again, trailers are completely different. There's plenty of trailers or press released videos showcasing the gameplay. Also it's CoD, you know what you're buying.

My point is that not every trailer needs to be gameplay as much as every trailer doesn't need to be cinematic. Each trailer achieves a different purpose but I've never seen a game completely falsely advertise its content with every trailer.

Also, to be fair, that live action trailer does show off some new gadgets in the game and highlight the multiplayer of CoD. Nowadays a trailer doesn't need to sell everything about the game to you, it's to get you interested in it and information is only a Google away.

 

[Rydian]

The complaint isn't that trailers don't "focus on" the gameplay, it's when trailers don't show any gameplay whatsoever.

The trailers are certainly geared to get people excited/interested, and do show the concept of the world... like this one.

But again, all cinematics, no game. Is it an enclosed FPS game like CoD? A stealth-based game like Splinter Cell? A free-world roaming game like GTA? Or is it a cinematics-choices game like Don Bluth's ones?

And that's not even getting into ones like this.

Again, the basic concept is shown, but they don't show the actual product that we, as customers, will be interacting with.

 

[Daniel Carville]

Videogames are being treated more and more like movies.
For example, a unit of my college course is studying what makes a videogame story, and despite the tutor being really into videogames, is teaching how to write a story in general, not in relation to videogames, but more like books or films.
Videogames can show the same story that a movie/novel can, but if you're going to play a videogame JUST for the story, isn't there something wrong here? Aren't you playing it for the gameplay?

Trailers try to capitalize on the fact that videogames have movie-like stories, and I can't help but feel that they're marketing to the wrong audience.

 

[Rydian]

With movie trailers you're at least seeing clips of the actual product. Sometimes with game trailers, it's scenes that literally made up for the commercial/trailer.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

But there's other trailers that do show gameplay. Some inform you on the story, some the setting, some the gameplay. They each have different projects.

I'd be upset if a game had nothing in all its trailers but cinematics, but that's hardly ever the case. Plus with game demos, Let's Plays, and tons of press releases showcasing gameplay demos, why do we need trailers for them anymore?

 

[Rydian]

I'd be upset if a game had nothing in all its trailers but cinematics, but that's hardly ever the case.

"Hardly ever"? I just embedded three for recent games, and one of those games is being advertised on TV like that.

Plus with game demos, Let's Plays, and tons of press releases showcasing gameplay demos, why do we need trailers for them anymore?

"Why should commercials show you the actual product when you can just google it", really?

The point of a commercial is to convince a customer to buy a product or service, and this is generally done by showing the actual product or service.

Are games nowadays such shit that they dare not be shown on TV or something?

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Were gaming commercials "back in the day" just so much better?

Like I hear people hail some day way back when all the trailers just showed gameplay but I'd like to see actual examples. We live in the age where we're persuaded to research topics ourselves. It's the whole mentality of viral marketing and teaser trailers. You go "What is this?" and find out yourself. It's not necessarily bad, it's what we do. We don't live in some world where information is so scarce that we have to analyze any little bit of it. When a trailer gets you interested, you have the tools to find everything out about the game you want.

I'd be concerned if, for one specific game, no trailer showed gameplay, no press talked about gameplay, and there was no actual knowledge of gameplay, but that doesn't happen.

 

[PettingZoo]

"Hardly ever"? I just embedded three for recent games, and one of those games is being advertised on TV like that.

"Why should commercials show you the actual product when you can just google it", really?

The point of a commercial is to convince a customer to buy a product or service, and this is generally done by showing the actual product or service.

Are games nowadays such shit that they dare not be shown on TV or something?

I really don't see what you're getting at here, video game trailers and video game consoles have always had stylistic trailers/teasers/commercials that don't show the product/gameplay. Go look at some of the Playstation 2 commercials (particularly the ones done by David Lynch) or some early Playstation 3 commercials.

Why bother putting in time and effort into making a great stylish trailer for a game when you could just record gameplay right? Or why bother putting together a great ad for any product when you could just spend time filming it at a couple different angles as they are and show that to people.

That Hitman: Absolution trailer gives you a peak into the story of the game where it indicates that the Agency is coming after you and that you're taking care of some teenage girl. It's a launch trailer, something to show the fans that hitman is back, or to show new viewers that there's a new stealthy video game coming out.

It isn't because "games nowadays are such shit" it's the fact that an ad may peak someones interest or at least give you a run down of what the game is about. Throwing gameplay at someone probably wouldn't hook them or get you that interested in the game, since you probably don't know what any of it means.

tl;dr
Video game trailers and pretty much advertisements in general have been the same for many, many years since they were created. Please get off your high horse, you're not some visionary who has discovered video game commercials don't always include gameplay.

 

[PolloDiablo]

AVGN and the retrospectives are the only things worthy of my time on that shitty site

 

[Rydian]

Were gaming commercials "back in the day" just so much better?

HI, WELCOME TO THE THREAD.

Sonic 3


Streets Of Rage


Super Mario 64


Super Smash Bros.


F-Zero


Metal Gear Solid


Back then they showed the actual product.

Hell, even in the PSX era where FMVs became a major selling point, they were at least showing clips of FMVs from the game.


The above video can be thought of as a good example of the halfway point, actually... this is before they started just making stuff up for commercials.

I really don't see what you're getting at here, video game trailers and video game consoles have always had stylistic trailers/teasers/commercials that don't show the product/gameplay. Go look at some of the Playstation 2 commercials (particularly the ones done by David Lynch) or some early Playstation 3 commercials.

"Always", "playstation 2", "playstation 3". Hahahahha!

Hate to break it to you, but video games and video game advertising is a lot older than that.

 

[Rydian]

tl;dr
Video game trailers and pretty much advertisements in general have been the same for many, many years since they were created.

Bullshit.

See: My above post (which was posted before you finished this post I'm quoting).

Video game commercials HAVE been doing the whole "let's try to sell a product but never actually show it" crap for years now, but they've been around a lot longer, and in the older days they actually showed gameplay (I posted multiple examples).

"The last few years" is true (and that's the issue), but "always" is not.

Please get off your high horse, you're not some visionary who has discovered video game commercials don't always include gameplay.

No, I'm somebody that didn't just get into gaming in the PS2 era.

I seem haughty because I'm surprised you all seriously believe that the modern commercial bullshit is normal and acceptable.

 

[Gahars]

Game ads that show no gameplay are nothing new.

You can make the comparison to film, but I don't think that's really fair; film lends itself better to advertisements and trailers while games (especially games today) are a far more complex beast. There's more elements you have to convey in a relatively short time span. Plus, just showing gameplay doesn't necessarily convey if it's fun or how it's fun; that sort of thing is difficult to express without putting the controller in a person's hand.

Tailoring trailers to focus on the cinematics, introducing the concept, story, or general themes, in order to spark the viewer's interest is a sensible, economic approach.

 

[PettingZoo]

Bullshit.

See: My above post (which was posted before you finished this post I'm quoting).

Video game commercials HAVE been doing the whole "let's try to sell a product but never actually show it" crap for years now, but they've been around a lot longer, and in the older days they actually showed gameplay (I posted multiple examples).

"The last few years" is true (and that's the issue), but "always" is not.

No, I'm somebody that didn't just get into gaming in the PS2 era.

I seem haughty because I'm surprised you all seriously believe that the modern commercial bullshit is normal and acceptable.

But modern video game trailers/commercials do happen to show gameplay.











and there are some much older video game trailers that don't feature any gameplay, hell not really anything related to the game apart from the character.



It's quite obvious that video game advertising has been around a lot longer than the Playstation 2 (the fact I was using it as an example was that their commercials are well known), and no it wasn't how I was introduced to video gaming as you imply. You could have even taken one look at my avatar.

They have done this for many years, it's true. But it also is not an issue at all, it works well. Could you have gotten it through your mind the fact that they run multiple different commercials? or that perhaps gameplay may not be finalized for advertisement? or that they have a different schedule for releasing trailers?

One more this 'modern commercial bullshit' is not bullshit, it is fine, it's a much more creative process than zany live action commercials cut together with edgy music and short snippets of gameplay. This way we get to see a more creative view of the game and what it is about. So yes, please get off of your "Old commercials are amazing, new modern commercials are a bullshit cancer" high horse.

 

[Rydian]

I consider commercials for a product that don't show the actual product (instead showing stuff you don't get) to be misleading. This shit wouldn't fly with other products, why do we let it fly with videogames?
Yes, I can always go look up gameplay videos on youtube (and often am required to to see the actual product), but I shouldn't be required to do that to actually SEE what's being sold.

EDIT: The above was in response to Gahars, the below is to the post above mine (I was slow it seems).

Congrats, you've realized that the black and white view of "commercials have always been this way" isn't true.

I'm not saying that there aren't any commercials that no longer show gameplay, nor was the OP.

The concern is the change in the ratio. In the old days, most commercials showed the product. Nowadays, a large number don't than do.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I'd also like to point out in an age where the internet is so prevalent and Youtube is a household name that a single trailer rarely needs to accomplish every purpose.

That's why we have "story trailers" and "gameplay trailers".

 

[PettingZoo]

I consider commercials for a product that don't show the actual product (instead showing stuff you don't get) to be misleading. This shit wouldn't fly with other products, why do we let it fly with videogames?

Yes, I can always go look up gameplay videos on youtube (and often am required to to see the actual product), but I shouldn't be required to do that to actually SEE what's being sold.

Again, you don't seem to have considered the fact that many of these trailers have been created before acceptable gameplay could be released (ie: Hitman: Absolution). And many of these trailers are released on the internet or over Xbox Live/Playstation Store (Where there are descriptions of the game, telling you if it's an rpg/fps/etc) and not broadcast on television. Even so many violent video games probably can't be aired on television (again Hitman, although I doubt that trailer itself was released anywhere but the internet).

If you're finding these ads oh so misleading, do you consider Axe/Lynx body spray ads misleading (making women crawl all over you)? do you consider that those old Nintendo commercials were misleading since you weren't flattened or were blown away by the TV?

Advertisements have never and will never always be a "what you see is what you get", they are to display the product in its essence (most but not all of the time displaying the product) or to accentuate what the product does or is about.

EDIT: The above was in response to Gahars.

Congrats, you've realized that the black and white view of "commercials have always been this way" isn't true.

I'm not saying that there aren't any commercials that no longer show gameplay, nor was the OP.

The concern is the change in the ratio. In the old days, most commercials showed the product. Nowadays, a large number don't than do.

Then why describe them being such bullshit, it really doesn't matter. The ratio is perfectly fine, it probably just seems many cinematic trailers are more popular around the internet. I'd have to say the last video game commercial that I've seen in a long time that featured no gameplay was for Assasin's Creed 3, before then and till now though pretty much every game shown aired on television features gameplay.

EDIT: it really should have been stated earlier but trailers and advertisements for video games are two separate things really. Even more specific, launch trailers (ie: Hitman: Absolution, Halo2) and gameplay/regular trailers. Many video game advertisements on tv these days show gameplay and even sometimes show what outlet you'd be able to buy it from.

tl;dr
there are still advertisements with gameplay, but launch trailers are more prominent to not have gameplay since they're usually released quite early.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

This one got only 3 secs of gameplay in the ending. Still think it is a pretty good commercial.

 

[Rydian]

Again, you don't seem to have considered the fact that many of these trailers have been created before acceptable gameplay could be released (ie: Hitman: Absolution).

In many industries, making a commercial for a product that doesn't exist is considered stupid.

Launch announcement videos (sequel announced at a con, etc.) are another story, but that's not what I'm talking about. Guild mentioned this somewhat earlier in response to the Pandaria example, that expansion and sequel products are often aimed at the existing userbase (so some level of existing knowledge on the product can be assumed).

My concern is public trailers and commercials that get released with little to no context, often on TV. The point of a commercial is to show a potential customer your product, and a lot of modern commercials don't show that.

If you're finding these ads oh so misleading, do you consider Axe/Lynx body spray ads misleading (making women crawl all over you)?

Those body spray commercials actually show the body spray and show it in use (often getting a closeup of the armpit or something, even). The expected effects of a product aren't the concern here, commercials and advertisements have depicted unrealistic results since well before television ("snake oil" became a blanket term for a reason).