As we relish at the prospect of all the wonderful new games headed our way in this new year (and indeed, the new decade), I thought it would be a great way to kick off 2010 by discussing a vital component of media: Trailers.
Trailers are the link we have to visual media before the final product is released. Trailers can be breathtaking, awe-inspiring, hype-inducing, and they also have some infuriating tendencies about them. So I’ve decided to present a list of some important guidelines to keep in mind when making trailers. Trust me, developers, we will thank you for it. Some of these even apply to movies as well.
1. Do not give away big spoilers in your trailers
“Jill, we traced the call, it’s coming from inside the house!” -When A Stranger Calls
A surprising plot twist that might have had a greater impact had it not been given away in the first teaser trailer for that movie. In video game land, Mass Effect 2 (of all games) does this. Tali’s character profile gives away a fairly important spoiler about her role in the story. It’s not the ultimate secret of the game, but now we know exactly what’s going to happen to Tali. When you do this, developers, you’re telling us two things. Firstly we get the impression that there’s so little to market that you actually have to give away parts of the story, and we also know where the killer is going to be for 75% of the movie, or what’s going to happen to a character we all like.
2. Know the difference between “cinematic trailer” and “gameplay trailer”
Video game developers, let’s clarify something: We don’t dislike cinematic trailers. Cinematic trailers can blast our socks clear off our feet ala the one for Mass Effect 2. We do take issue when you tout a gameplay trailer but wind up sneaking what are obviously cutscenes or pre-rendered movies in between actual gameplay segments. Final Fantasy XIII pulled this with a few trailers, and Call of Duty 3 actually went the extra mile by including a pre-rendered cutscene from the first person perspective. It’s false advertising and it’s grounds for us, say, buying a different game when we take our hard earned cash to Best Buy. Speaking of false advertising…
3. Do not aggressively advertise DLC without making it clear that it is DLC
Again, downloadable content itself isn’t bad. Downloadable content finally gave us the ability to continue wandering the Capitol Wasteland in Fallout 3 if we were benevolent heroes courtesy of Broken Steel. The problem is hyping up content that we then have to purchase on top of the game we’re already paying at least $50 for. This has been an issue in just about every music rhythm game on a system that has downloadable content: One of the trailers for Beatles Rock Band showcased “All You Need Is Love” before we found out you had to download it. In a similar vein…
4. Only show us movie clips that are in the theatrical version
More and more, there’s been a very peculiar trend in the movie industry. Films have been showing trailers laden with clips that never appear in the movie, although they often find their way onto YouTube or the DVD Deleted Scenes reel. Not only is this false advertising, it’s giving us the wrong impression of what to expect, and just about everybody is guilty of it including all three Lord of the Rings movies. Unfortunately, DVD releases mean it’s easier to stockpile deleted features and advertise then as something good, so this probably won’t improve any time soon.
5. Stop using bullet time effects in trailers when the actual scene doesn’t use them
Bullet time effects remind me of that theme song from Battlefield Heroes: They never, ever go away. Video games and action movies have relentlessly beaten a long dead horse by trying to capitalize on something that stopped being cool years ago and is nowadays more irritating than anything else. A few movies and games take this one step further and have actually used this stupid slowdown effect in trailers even though the actual scene in the game doesn’t. It’s bad enough that we see this stuff in the actual product, now you’re giving it to us in trailers, too? Knock it off.
6. Do not hype up content that we need to spend 50 hours unlocking
This brings back horrible memories of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. There we were, all ready to play as Sonic the Hedgehog and have a real brawl with Mario! We eagerly booted up our Wii systems, opened the character selection screen and…he wasn’t there. After being touted in multiple trailers and even being featured on the back of the box as a new character, we had to either play for ten hours to unlock him or beat Subspace Emissary, which also took around ten hours depending on the difficulty. This turns your game into a chore, developers, because we will spend hours grinding through the game that you (presumably) intended to be fun just so we can enjoy what you promised us. The idea of unlockable characters has always been to surprise and gratify players by throwing in unexpected characters, locations, what have you. Lately, this golden rule has been violated for the sake of hyping up a game. This does not please us.
There you have it: As long as studios avoid some of these irritating pitfalls, we’ll be grateful. Rather than embitter us or make us enjoy the game less, honest trailers will make for a much more rewarding experience to all.
Simon Jones
Amen!
January 5th, 2010 at 12:12 AM