Hard Sell vs Soft Sell Trailer

I think most game trailers fall on a spectrum where either the viewer doesn't feel like they're being marketed to, or there's a sales person who's screaming their face: "LOOK AT HOW COOL THIS IS! ISN'T THIS THE COOLEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN!?" I would guess most people prefer the former over the latter because it doesn't feel good when a sales person or company is being pushy or coercive. 

Unfortunately, just telling the customer a game is cool is the easiest way to make a trailer, but making it look cool is the most difficult. After all, if people could be convinced to buy something every time they heard an energetic trailer narrator say: "Come play this game! In it, [you do this] and that's cool because of [these reasons], GET HYPED!" then all game trailers would do that and I wouldn't need to write so many of these posts :P

As a trailer maker, you are essentially taking the role of a sales representative and each game needs a different style. I think most games need a sales rep whose presence is felt as little as possible, but there are some exceptions where their presence is okay as long as they wear the right clothes. Okay, this is getting kind of abstract so here are some examples.

A good example of a trailer whose sales person found the "right clothes" are the trailers for Broforce (edited by my friend Kert Gartner). You'd have a hard time accusing these trailers of being subtle in the slightest. They're very in-your-face, but they work brilliantly because the over-the-top narrator and motion graphics are completely cohesive with the game and the 80s/90s action film inspirations.

On the flip side, when there's an over the top narrator who totally DOESN'T fit the game's style or tone you end up with a trailer like the Mighty No. 9 Masterclass trailer. This trailer is an example of a sales rep who wore the wrong clothes and really shouldn't have been hired in the first place. After all, there's nothing less cool than someone saying they're cool or having someone say on behalf that they're cool. That's like being on a date with a very egotistical person, or being on the receiving end of a pitch by an overbearing parent trying to get you to date their adult child ("Have you met my SON? He went to Harvard and works out every day!")

I think the problem most game trailer makers fall into aren't these complete misses. Most game trailers are just a little too eager to tell the audience what the game is about or sell them on its features. This results in a trailer where consciously or not, we feel the presence of the sales person just enough to get frustrated, confused or turned off.

In order to avoid a tell and sell, you have to know the parts of a trailer which can be used to potentially tout the game's strengths or if done poorly, outright obstruct them. 

These are the main culprits I see in most game trailers:

• Text and narration which cite features and content

• Accolades from 3rd parties like press or media

• Visuals and audio which feel incongruous with the game

• Attention grabbing editing

Feature lists and content are the most common offender. When I see trailers in which the first second or two has a title card that says something like "EXPLORE A MAGICAL WORLD" I get turned off. It feels like the game footage was trying to introduce itself, when all of a sudden the trailer editor got in my face to say: "LOOK HOW MAGICAL THIS IS! YOU KNOW IT'S MAGICAL BECAUSE I SAID IT IS!" When really, I just wanted to look at some footage so I could use my own brain to figure it out. 

You never want your game trailer to feel like it's doing this.

I recently learned of a great quote which sums up this sentiment rather elegantly (the quote's origin are disputed)

Tell Me and I Forget;
Teach Me and I May Remember;
Involve Me and I Learn

The more space the player is given to draw their own conclusions, the more receptive they will be to the idea.

Text and narration which describe the game like a product are boring and undifferentiated especially when the features cited are rather rote, like: procedurally generated levels, boss battles, weapon upgrades, and multiple environments. Not only do these things reveal the sales person behind the trailer, they reveal a sales person with a very generic pitch. So in that case, they might as well not be there.

I've previously written about how best to use review quotes, but they're also another thing in trailers which can feel like that overbearing parent touting their adult child. Even though it's not the developers or publishers themselves saying the words of praise, we know they're the ones who put them in the trailer. 

Incongruous audio and visuals is the territory of trailers for Mighty No. 9 or the particular trailers for Immortals Fenyx Rising, Godfall and Chronos: Before the AshesI cited in this post I wrote about when trailers say more about the people behind the advertising than they do about the game. But in a nutshell, when a trailer adds on things like motion graphics, custom animation, trailer narrators or "cool" music choices they run the risk of tanking the trailer if they're not cohesive with the game's style and tone. This goes for both very flashy and expensive things like CG animation and live action shoots or for plain white text on top of game footage.

Lastly, attention grabbing editing is another way trailers can feel like they're trying to make a game look cooler than it is. This includes techniques like very fast cutting, stuttery flutter cuts, excessive fades and aggressive sound design. In actuality this type of editing can make the game look less cool, because it's essentially saying: "This wasn't cool enough on its own, so we had to compensate for its shortcomings." I wrote about this in this previous post about trailer editing tricks, and recently discussed it with my podcast co-host in discussing the trailer for the new Pierce Brosnan film The Misfits.

The best compliment I can receive for a trailer I make (other than "That was the best game trailer ever!!!" is if the commenter indicates they understood and liked the game concepts I set out to communicate in the trailer.

Okay, so now that we know the things to either avoid or mitigate, how do you involve the player in the trailer? First, don't think of yourself as a pushy sales person; think of yourself as someone trying to help the player figure out if they're a good fit for your game.

So with all this in mind, what does it look like when a trailer doesn't tell and sell, but manages to educate and excite the audience?

I think it's a combination of good music, well directed and performed capture, tight editing and title cards and narration which are used on a need to know basis. That is, title cards which are not used until there's something the audience needs to know and not until when they need to know it. Of course, not all games are as comprehensible from footage alone, but that's a bigger topic.

This trailer for Super Mario Odyssey is one of my favorites which presents a lot of new ideas in a way which is entertaining and easy to understand. 

The interesting thing is, Nintendo trailers vacillate between trailers like this and ones which explain the game within an inch of its life. Though in fairness, these often fit into a marketing funnel structure wherein they start with a more teaser-y trailer and lean more heavily on explanation as the game gets closer to release.

Here are some suggestions to start with if you want to make a game trailer which doesn't use tell and sell tactics.

• Start with as little added text and narration as possible, and add only when a game or story concept would otherwise be invisible to the viewer.

• Tell the story using text and dialogue straight from the game or derived from the game. I talk extensively about this case study for the trailer I made for Heaven's Vault

• Each shot in the trailer should either present a new idea, answer a subsequent question or pose a new question. Since you as the quiet sales rep aren't available for follow up questions, the trailer has to be aware of what the viewer needs to know.

This isn't from the real trailer, but if was, it wouldn't just be saying that you use kung fu.
It would be saying: "We thought you wouldn't know this if we didn't tell you."

One last tip to help audit your work. If you're ever worried about whether or not the trailer is making too hard a sell, or the sales rep is revealing themselves too much, ask yourself these questions:

• Who is doing the talking?

• Who benefits most from this being in the trailer?

Ideally, material taken straight from the game is doing most of the "talking," not the trailer editor or marketing team. Anything inserted into the trailer which didn't come from the game or its creators needs that much more scrutiny in order for it to feel cohesive and invisible. 

Lastly, even though trailers are about making the game look cool, exciting or intriguing, they should serve the players' needs more than the developer or publisher's. Don't use the trailer to try to make yourself look cool. Make the trailer to help people decide whether it's something they want to buy or learn more about. Hopefully the game itself has enough interesting stuff going on that it'll shine through if you as the trailer editor help present it in its best light.