The Trailers of E3

E3 is two weeks away. The excitement is like electricity in the air.  And if game hype is electricity then the Tesla Coil is the game trailer.  In a few weeks we can expect to be completely bombarded with these little hype machines as game companies play the part of the momma bird and vomit their regurgitated development work into our eager little mouths. Oh…shall we certainly suck it down like greedy little imps.

But how many of these game trailers will be good?  How many will grasp us in the right place and how many will miss the mark?  We’ve seen the good and the bad. Lets take a small (e.g. under 300 words) look at why some of them can be so very bad.

A trailer was released awhile ago that I thought really captured what I want to see in a game trailer…and no, gameplay is not a necessity. Although in this case there may have been a method behind the madness. The musical trailer for Wet, I believed, was one of the best game trailers we had seen in recent memory.  Yes, I know. With the myriad of trailers that come out in all forms its hard to believe. But you must have faith. The best, and almost, ironic thing about this particular trailer is that it showed absolutely no gameplay footage at all and it had single handedly peaked my interest in a game that was little more than an insignificant blip, on the insignificant radar, on the insignificant part of my brain that I usually have on point during my binge drinking sessions.

In case you don't remember.

No gameplay? Check. Humour? Check. Creativity? Check.

The thing here is that I didn't NEED to see gameplay here. If THIS was the creativity that the producers of this game showed just on the trailer...then my hopes and excitement for this game are raised tenfold. Of course, I never underestimate my ability to be wrong, and unfortunately the fact remains that this trailer is probably more creative and interesting than the game itself turned out to be.  But we’re not talking about the game itself so shut you’re fucking mouth. We’re talking about game TRAILERS here. Who gives a fuck about the actual game when we can get a diaper full of hype juice exploding in our pants!

So why the hell can't game companies take a lesson from this? Why do most trailers show the same old, same old and generally suck? Well there are many reasons.

MARKETING MEN

You may not know it but everyone knows a marketing person. Yes...even you. Remember that kid in school who used to try to be cool but could never get it quite right? No, not you or I. We weren't cool and we didn't try. I'm talking about that kid who was convinced that he had his sticky finger on the artery of society and would follow any trend with reckless abandon...albeight do it really poorly. One month he's a hippy, then a gangsta' then...something else and you don't even know what the fuck he's doing. But he's CONVINCED he knows. Well that kid, ladies and gentlemen, grew up to be a Marketing person for a big corporation. And they still think they know what YOU want. These are the people responsible for that trainwreck of a trailer for Dragon Age Origins. You know the one with the Marilyn Manson and the people vomiting blood all over their own crotches while dwarves lick it off. yeah...that one.

Marketing men also invented crocs.  That in itself is a sin unto humanity that should not go unpunished.

COMPANIES

We are all well aware that large companies like EA and Activision are soulless, eyeless beings who bleed acid when cut and don't go to the bathroom EVER. When these beasts can wipe away the baby and puppy blood from their eyes long enough to make it into the office there is one motivation festering deep within the hunk of tumorous, teeth sprouting, hunks of flesh that pass for their brains. Money.

These individuals make up the "final word' of what you see in many of the trailers you see today. And these decisions are made not on creativity, but soley on focus groups, polling and a strange divination ritual where they saw off their own legs and throw them into a spackle bucket. Its the reason every COD trailer looks the same. Its the reason that there are only about 4 franchises that the general public gets really excited about.

So going into E3, one thing I'll be paying attention to is what companies actually make trailers that not only are serving the masters of the lowest common denominator, but those who are actually willing to take a chance on their creative product.  How many companies are going to let the artists work and vision shine through, and not just the explosions and tits.

Hopefully its more than I'm expecting.

-Joseph-

This post represents a re-edition of an earlier post on game trailers that Joseph wrote on his old blog preceding his work on 4Player Podcast. Since no one ever read that blog here it is again... rejuvenated for your enjoyment