I was posting this as a reply to the Tiberium Trailer thread, but then thought this warrented it's own thread...

We're working on a trailer for our game at work and I'm leaning towards making it entirely with the game engine with cinematic cameras, as opposed to an expensive pre-rendered thing.

I was wondering...do all you gamers like to see what the actual game looks like in the trailers...or do you like the mega Blur or Blizzard 3D productions which might tell the stroy of the game and look sexy, but visually/audibly are totaly different to the actual game?

A drawback of the in-game engine trailers is sometimes the visual quality isn't as shmick as pre-rendered...but I think if the engine is up to today's standards, and the trailer concept is entertaining, than in-game based trailers are the go. They may even have more credibility due to the fact they are in-game visuals.

Anyone agree or disagree?

They may even have more credibility due to the fact they are in-game visuals.

I agree with what you've said and with that quoted statement most of all.

However, my opinion might not be worth much given I don't look at game trailers.

For me, it doesn't really matter wether the cinematics are in-game or pre-rendered. If the voices suck, I will skip it if I can. I'm really picky with character voices. Very few i've ever liked. There are times when pre-rendered is the way to go though, such as a action sequence

last edited by DM at 23:16:28 29/Jan/08

I hate cinematic trailers. cinematics in game are fine, but when you're advertising a game at least show us what it will look like.

That's something I don't like about WoW. It shows a beautiful cinematic trailer of orcs, goblins and hot 3D blood elf babes, while when you get ingame what is there?

s*** and fail.

:>

Fallout 3 on the other hand only had to show a street and one character of in-game engine work, and that ALONE got the attention of a large crowd.

Nothing annoys me more then waiting until the trailer has reached the halfway point before the splash logos have passed.

cinematic trailers are like, buying a car, looks nice on the outside but you dont get to see the interior where you will be sitting all the time.

I watch pretty much every major trailer, well every one you would see hosted on AusGamers Files and would definitely say I prefer to see actual in-game action rather than a pre-rendered production.

That said, if you game actually has some pre-rendered cut-scenes then releasing them as their own separate trailers or splicing them in around the actual gameplay is cool too.

If a game is especially graphically impressive, I think the "Actual in-game footage" disclaimer can add a bit of wow factor.

One thing I'm increasingly disliking are dev-diary style vids. They're only any good if I'm already interested in a game and want to know every little detail about it, otherwise, meh, give me more gameplay clips.

I don't think you need massive production values to make a decent trailer for a game, some pubs seem to go way overboard to the point of completely jerking off every time they release a new vid (cough GTA4). That said, I did enjoy the Halo 3 diorama vids)

Some humour or fan-service can often be a good thing too (BF Bad company, Army of Two, Savage 2's dramatic chiprel).

Thing is, I can't really recall too many stand-out trailers but there has definitely been a lot of videos that have piqued my interest in a title I had previously known little about. I'll have a browse over my big-dir-of-trailers tomorrow and see if I can pick some examples.

A couple of pointers from a press perspective though.

-HD widescreen, at least 720p as a base, if you're distributing leave it up to the sites to transcode lower resolutions if they want.

-don't fill up 50% of the video with stupid branding splash screens (hi EA)

-If you don't have a major publisher/PR team doing the leg work, link your trailer/official site with a direct download to as many gaming mirror sites as possible, we love helping devs with new releases.

-if you're an indie dev or a mod team (or anyone for that matter) don't use background music that you don't have the rights to, a lot of places flat out won't host it.

Of course these opinions are just my perspective, what appeals to your average joe might be different.

That's something I don't like about WoW. It shows a beautiful cinematic trailer of orcs, goblins and hot 3D blood elf babes, while when you get ingame what is there?

Sure you're not just talking about the intro to the game? Plus there's nothing wrong the the in game visuals either. I personally like the style and the amount of artwork that has gone into the game is amazing. If you think the game is gonna look like the intro then you can forget about running it on todays machine.

I personally feel that a pretty cinematic sequence is good at first to raise public knowledge and an initial anxious hype over it's impending release but it should soon be followed by something showing actual gameplay.

This helps me personally to get a feel for what I am looking at and paint a fuller picture of what the end product will be like both storywise (which is important) and with the stuff I will be sinking many hours into (gameplay).

If you can do both all the better but I would lean towards the in game stuff being more important than the shiny stuff.

*EDIT* In conclusion with the gaming market as it is and the huge influx of new games all the time you gotta hook us and keep us on the line or the game is going to go down the tubes in a hurry. I mean, why shell out 80-100 bucks for something that may be complete crap with a shiny teaser the only thing to look at online?


last edited by Xy at 23:59:12 29/Jan/08

I always thought for teasers cinematic stuff is fine but for a trailer advertising the game (and not just hyping it up) you need some in-graphics combined with CGI.

Fallout 3 on the other hand only had to show a street and one character of in-game engine work, and that ALONE got the attention of a large crowd.

I thought that was no-more than a teaser?

Speaking of World of Warcraft, the teaser for the game was extremely well done. It was found on the warcraft 3 cd.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFWYANw0fO0

a bit of cinematic at start, then show some ingame footage..

ingame only cinematic type footage looks crap, therefore pre-rendered for to introduce the game then show off some of the gameplay/ingame footage/graphics.

f***ing <3 blizzard cinematics

wow did cinematics right, but then they have the story/hype to back them up

Personally I don't really care whether its in-game or not, just show me why I will enjoy the game and crave it. If it's an RPG, cinematics *may* very well be better, if its a FPS show me the pace / action / blowing s*** up. Assassins Creed / Heavenly Sword would be good examples, great trailers that made everybody go nuts (shame about the games).

Yeh, I am over cinematics. I remember really looking forward to the new Blizzard releases but after everyone started doing it and the line between cinematics and in-game engine scenes became a little blurred I lost a lot of interest. I think its much more important to show and highlight the gameplay and the quality of your in-game graphics.

Of course gamers still aren't really the discriminating creatures one would hope them to be when plonking down a C note for a game, so it might not make a lot of difference. But at some point maybe they'll start paying attention to the details :)

tf2 teasers were f***ing hilarious.

The TF2 trailers were really good for a few reasons:

1) They used in-game graphics to show off how f***ing awesome and flexible the engine is
2) They showed the quality of the graphics off and the unique visual style
3) They were done in comedy style that really suited the style of the game (and I guess appealed pretty accurately to the target community)

Here's a few examples of recent-ish trailers that imo did things right.

Burnout Paradise:
http://www.ausgamers.com/videos/view.php/31910

BioShock:
http://www.gamearena.com.au/videos/latest.php/bioshock-launch-trailer

Assassin's Creed:
http://www.ausgamers.com/videos/view.php/31994

Battlefield Bad Company:
http://www.ausgamers.com/videos/view.php/30631

Little Big Planet:
http://www.ausgamers.com/videos/view.php/30843

World in Conflict:
http://www.gamearena.com.au/videos/latest.php/world-in-conflict-rule-the-world-trailer

This is great feedback guys, I really appreciate your thoughts.

I think Halo Wars is a good example of what I don't want to happen...where the trailer looks awesome, and gets you hyped, but then you look at the gameplay and it's totally differnt...more of a classic RTS. Maybe they did this cause classic RTS is actually a bit crap looking (eg camera high up looking down makes everyone look small).

I suppose cause our game has more camera flexibility, and the characters will be viewed from all angles, we'll be able to show off the look and feel of the game in a cinematic way, and from what most of you are saying...this achieves what everyone wants...to get hyped about the game and see what the game actually looks like.

Does anyone like Dev interviews?

Does anyone like Dev interviews?

I bet Dan likes doing them.

PS. I don't mind reading them, as long as they aren't like those Dev Diaries that trog likes.

RE: The RTS thing, agreed with Halo Wars. That's why I chucked in the world in conflict vid. That said, I thought the Starcraft 2 20 minute demonstration thing was a pretty good idea and Halo Wars has done one of them too which also helps give a much better view of what the game will be like.

That said, I thought the Starcraft 2 20 minute demonstration thing was a pretty good idea

I couldn't even sit through a few minutes of it - at first I thought it was just because I never played the original SC so didn't care/know what was going on but then I tried to apply that to FPS games - I think I'd be hard pressed to watch a 20 minute long movie of a game showing off gameplay - especially pre-release cuz it might give away too much of the cool stuff (especially now that FPS games are shorter than they used to be in a lot of cases)

at first I thought it was just because I never played the original SC so didn't care/know what was going on

That's definitely why. You can't really apply the same to FPS because they are very different games. I think the 20 minute demo applies well to StarCraft because it has such a massive hardcore fanbase.

I imagine a lot of Koreans were very impressed by that video.

...and by Dev interviews, I meant dev interview videos. Just in case there was confusion.

For me, i don't mind listening/watching someone who worked on the game and are sincerley into the game, and explain some cool stuff that people may or may not have known about the game or the process of making it. The ones I don't like are ones where it's the big sell, and you feel like you're at a stereo shop and someone's trying to push you into buying something you don't really want.

From my personal point of view, I think dev interviews are a nice touch as extra packaged with a game. Kinda like director commentary with a DVD, but as a marketing tool they never really seem to affect my opinion of a game as much as a regular trailer.

A couple of exceptions that come to mind are :

-the Need for Speed Most Wanted Dev Diary, where they showed how they were filming the game's cut scenes. Was something I'd never really taken notice of before so it stood out as a cool newish effect.

-id Software's RAGE engine walkthrough tech-demo where they were showing the cool things possible with the new engine they are developing.

-the Crysis editor showcase that showed off being able to construct maps realtime in engine (where they curve the road etc).

There's probably more if I took a browse but percentage wise, at least for me I think there's a lot more value (as a promotional tool) in your standard 'showcase the actual game experience' trailer over the 'making-of' style ones.

I'm not interested in cut-scenes and cinematics... i watch them and think... "so..?", that's why I think it would be funny if companies like microsoft and adobe released cinematic trailers for products like Creative Suite and Office... it would highlight the stupidity of it...

I totally agree with what most peeps are saying but the Starcraft 2 'It's about time' trailer is just f***ing... cool.