Trailers With Their Own Hook
There's a lot of good marketing advice about finding a good hook for a game, but what about a good hook for a trailer? How can a trailer have a hook? What if I told you there's a game trailer which makes fishing look like an extreme sport? Or a trailer for a tactical warship game set to smooth jazz with a narrator who sounds like they're trying to seduce you. You're probably at least a little bit tempted to click, right?
At worst, a game trailer with a novel concept can be a distraction, but at best it can mean going viral in the best way possible.
I'll admit most of my work is about editing game footage into an engaging trailer with as little artifice as possible. In general I want people to be focused on the game, not how clever the concept for the trailer is, though I have great admiration for trailers with a well executed idea which either makes me laugh or say "WOW!
Did you see that trailer which makes fishing look EXTREEEEEEEME!?
What defines a trailer with a good hook? A trailer with a good hook piques your curiosity when you describe it to someone. For example, the launch trailer for Psychonauts 2 is made in the style of a James Bond intro complete with original song.
It's comparatively hard to describe a game trailer which simply does a good job of showcasing the game in a cinematic and/or engaging fashion. For example, I love this trailer for It Takes Two, but I'd just describe as "a good story trailer which uses Fleetwood Mac music to great effect."
Doesn't sound very hooky, right?
Contrast that description with the Snow Runner trailer made in the style of a Hideo Kojima trailer for Death Stranding. That's a fun hook for people familiar with Kojima's work. Another favorite of mine is The Last of Us trailer where you watch young Ellie morph into her teenage self in a single shot. If you'll indulge me, I think the "hookiest" trailer I've made is the trailer for the Steam version of BattleBlock Theater which pokes fun at PC gamers' obsession with high end graphics.
Just like I've talked about how a game's messaging needs a good hook, if your trailer has a good hook then it's more likely to be shared. I think this is a big reason for cinematic and animated trailers. There's novelty to a bespoke video made just to show the game from a different angle like in the delightful animated trailers for Dead Cells. The hook is "Did you see that fully animated trailer for Dead Cells!?" If you're familiar with the game, you know it's pixel art, so your interest might be piqued by the idea of a hand drawn 2D animated rendition.
Did you see the trailer which makes Raz look like James Bond?
A hooky trailer can cut both ways though. It can blow up in your face if you get TOO high concept or out-of-the-box and people sense you're trying to look cool. Trailers I'd put in that territory are this Immortals Fenyx Rising trailer set to some very funky music and this bewildering trailer for Chronos: Before the Ashes with an 80s vibe and whiny gamer who just wants to play her games rather than eat dinner. In these cases the trailers might prompt people to say: "Have you seen this trailer? What the hell were they thinking!?" Yes you get shares, but the spirit of why it's being shared doesn't put the game in a good light.
Normally I'd try to give some advice for how you can apply these ideas to your own trailer, but every game is different and I don't think every game would benefit from a hooky trailer. Ideally the game's hook itself is what gets people to watch a trailer, not the trailer's. But as with all trailers, I think their design should stem from the game's design and personality.
Did you see that trailer for the medieval game which for no apparent reason is dripping in 80s imagery?
Looking at the examples here, there seem to be some common themes. Sometimes the trailer was for a game which is otherwise not very flashy, like with Fishing Planetand Leviathan: Warships. In the case of Snowrunner it aligned well with the zeitgeist which in this case included the release of Death Stranding and goodwill towards truck drivers during the onset of the global pandemic. Or like with Psychonauts 2 and The Last of Us, they were one trailer of many others in the campaign, there was less pressure to be the be all and end all trailer which sums up the game.
In many of these scenarios, the trailer's design did the heavy lifting because the game's visuals might not hold their own. Just be careful your trailer's concept doesn't either overshadow the game or make it look like you're trying to obfuscate or overcompensate for a low quality game.
