What Your Trailer Says About You

A game trailer's presentation can say a lot about the people who made the trailer, and what they think about the game. I think under ideal circumstances we feel the presence of the trailer makers and marketers as little as possible. Editing and marketing are both things which are often at their strongest when they feel invisible. That way, the source material is allowed to shine through and be seen for its own strengths. 

This is one reason I tell people not to make apologies for perceived shortcomings in their game, or to try to overcompensate with flashy editing tricks or pumped up title cards for mundane game mechanics. If a game is simple, low budget, or doesn't have very good art, just show its best qualities and make the trailer as short and to the point as possible.

Trying to make a hard sell is a bad idea because it implicitly says the trailer maker thought: "Oh no, this source material is not very good. In order to make anyone interested in this, I have to frame the game in as interesting a way as possible, and hope people are convinced by the music, voiceover, graphics and editing (because they sure aren't going to be convinced by the game alone.)"

Imagine you're on a first date and all your date can talk about is how great they are because they: exercise, cook, clean, are great with kids, went to a great university, travel all over the world, etc. The more they extoll their own virtues, and the less they let you decide for yourself, the less confidence you're probably going to have they're as good as they claim.

So what does this look like in trailers? It can look like many different things, but the common theme is things feel mis-aligned or completely random. Take a look at this recent trailer for Ubisoft's new game Immortals Fenyx Rising.

If you take a quick look at the comments you'll see a lot of very bewildered people who are at best interested in the game despite the trailer and its choice of funky music. Based on the art and setting, it seems incredibly unlikely that the game's music is as funky as the trailer's, which is why it just feels so ODD. The trailer's footage is top notch and well edited to the music, but the music itself feels mostly out of place. There are some segments where the music has the epic orchestral score I expected, but then gets interrupted by the singer cutting back in.

This says to me the trailer makers thought the game needed some extra "cool" factor to make it attractive, because without this music it wouldn't have been able to stand on its own two feet. If I continue this line of thought I have to wonder: "Why wouldn't this game be able to shine on its own? Is the game bad somehow? Is it generic?" Ironically, what might've started as an attempt to make something seem less generic, I think the funky music made it feel MORE generic because it grouped the trailer into the pantheon of game trailers which use funky music or rap despite having none of that vibe in the game themselves. Speaking of, take a look at this trailer for Godfall.

Again, the comments are nothing but people talking about how the music doesn't match the trailer. I'm sure the intent of this music choice was to make the game look and feel badass, but it strips the game of its own identity. Again, I'm guessing the actual game has no rap music in it, so it's as if the trailer is trying to take the coolness factor of hip hop music and hope it rubs off onto the game. Taking something which on its own has cool factor, and awkwardly pairing it with a game which doesn't match will not make the game look cooler. 

Humans love to draw connections between things, but we get incredibly turned off when we see things which don't connect or align, ESPECIALLY when the intent is to sell us something. Had this trailer used something more expected like epic orchestral music, it would've still looked pretty generic, but at least it wouldn't have felt desperate. Similarly, this TV spot for DOOM Eternal received an abysmal like/dislike ratio for its music choice. This is an especially odd choice since the new DOOM games have such a strong musical brand identity that hearing anything else doesn't make sense. Of course, when hip hop music DOES align with its source material, the results can be spectacular.

Here's one last trailer where I not only feel the hand of the marketing team on my shoulder; it's as if they're sitting across from me forcing the game into my face in the most bizarre way possible. Here's the YouTube description for this game:

Take on the role of a young hero, trying to save his home from an ancient evil. Explore a mysterious labyrinth full of fearsome creatures and challenging puzzles. Each time you fail, the hero is cast out of the labyrinth and must wait one year to return – you can try again, but one year older. And older. And older…

This one just completely bewilders me. Why the 80s setting with the girl playing games? Why the scene of the mother calling her down to eat, and then the shot of her waiting for food? Just... why!? The only part where the live action segment feels vaguely aligned with the game is when characters from the game spill into the real world as if to imply the game is VR or very immersive. Based on the description, it seems the original game was VR only, but this new one is for non-VR systems. So even that would be off message if they're trying to sell a non-VR game.

Because the 80s setting and the game's fantasy adventure art design don't match at all, I can only conclude that the trailer team thought: "Those retro game trailers and commercials where you see the person playing the game are cool. Maybe that will make this game look cool!" But there's nothing in the game that looks like it warrants this choice. So again, like the hip hop music, it makes the game itself look weaker because the trailer makers felt the need to "think out of the box" to promote it rather than present it for what it is. 

Even worse would be if the trailer makers thought: "This will make the trailer go viral from hate/confusion clicks, and there's no such thing as bad publicity!" But there has to be something said for the quality of the views you're receiving; it doesn't matter if everyone is clicking, if all those people are then deciding they hate what they see. Maybe, MAYBE it would work if it goes so viral that 1% of those people purchase mean a ton of sales, but I think in the long run that tarnishes the reputation of the game, the studio or both.

In the grand scheme of things, only a very small percentage of games truly stand out from the crowd, but trying to make a game stand out by marketing in a very aggressive way to me feels like a lot of wasted effort for a potentially worse or catastrophic result. People are open to being sold a new thing (otherwise they'd never watch trailers), but respecting their intelligence and being honest will at the very least make them respect you.