E
veryone watches trailers, whether as part
of a big industry showcase such as E3, on
YouTube, or on a Steam store page. To
generate interest, trailers need to
simultaneously capture your attention and
efficiently deliver essential information about plot. The
exact method differs a lot depending on the game’s
genre and its unique selling points, but the basic aims
are the same. I spoke to developers and a marketing
team to find out what a good trailer needs.“Game trailers are often not clear enough about what you
end up doing. Is it a narrative game without a fail state? Is
it a survival game? All this really basic information is
missing, but it’s really important in games because of the
great variety of experiences games offer,” says Game
Designer (and former PC Gamer Section Editor) Tom
Francis. “Often when you’re making a game you don’t
realize what it is you haven’t said about your game.” The
trailer for his game Heat Signature features footage which
is explained via a humorous voiceover. As a result, viewers
get a sense of how it plays, and the tone it’s going for.
Phi Dinh and his team at Phigames took a different
approach with the trailer for action platformer Recompile.
Instead of footage or a storyboard, they took a piece of
music as a starting point. “I’m keeping things intentionallyCaption goes in
here x xx xx xx x xx
x
vague that way rather than allotting explicit time frames
to show off game mechanics or combat, “ says Dinh.
“It’s quicker than asking a composer to make the music
fit your very specific vision.”
Phigames also recognized Recompile’s strong visual
identity as one of its selling points—with a player
character that immediately stands out, and a unique
environment inside a computer mainframe. The resulting
trailer uses the sparse opening bars to establish the scene
and introduce the running player. As the music becomes
more complex and more intense, the trailer brings in
footage of increasingly varied and violent actions, building
from simple jumps to laser fire and explosions.
One function of a trailer is to offer a vital first
impression. That means developers and publishers often
need to figure out how to show the game in its best light
while it’s still under development. “Indie teams tend to
polish mechanics and environments right from the
beginning of the development cycle,” says Dinh. “For
Recompile we prototyped all of our mechanics from the
beginning in order to build an extremely polished first
level we could then use to make the trailer.” Tom Francis,
however, prefers to present you with a single polished
trailer once the game is complete and ready for purchase.
Before the game’s release he’s already captured himself
playing it and shared raw footage via social media, so theThe trailer
captures the calm
atmosphere of Where
the Goats Are.Creation
Trailers are a vital
marketing tool,
and the first
impression
players get of a
game in action.
Game trailers are
subject to a
number of
considerations
that differ greatly
from films, and
even from game
to game. What
form a trailer
takes can depend
on the game’s
genre, the state
of its production
process, where
the audience is
most likely to
see the trailer
and more.FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Trailers find many different ways to show off a game in the best light
PCG INVESTIGATES
Special
Report