What Makes an Effective Game Trailer

Recently, I took a class on video game marketing and design. In addition to doing some basic game creation, we looked at what made certain marketing strategies effective. Among the ones we looked at were Skyrim's teaser trailer, and the Assassins Creed III E3 Trailer. I am going to be analyzing some of the techniques used to make good trailers.

A good trailer is very important to the marketing strategy of games. It is the first glimpse the public gets at the game, and helps form an important impression with the viewer.

First, if you haven't seen it, take a look at the Skyrim trailer below.

The idea of Skyrims marketing campaign was rather simple. They released very few trailers, and of the three they released, only one, the last, showed actual gameplay footage. They wanted to keep audiences hinged, waiting for every little bit of Skyrim news they could get. The strategy worked very well, and one hacking group even threatened to hack Bethesda (Skyrims developers)  unless they released more information on Skyrim. Bethesda laughed. They also used it to break out of the niche role that fantasy games usually play. Instead of focusing on the fantasy elements that dedicated fans already knew would be included, it focused on the mood and tone of the game, which opened up its appeal to others as well. Focusing on the tone or story can garner support from people who would never have played a game of that genre otherwise. This was very effective, and the game sold almost twice as many copies as it's predecessor.

The E3 trailer for Assassins Creed III too, is impressive. You can watch it here (blogger won't let me upload it as a video). This video too, focuses heavily on the setting and themes of the game. It frames the video with shots of a bald eagle, simultaneously stating it takes place in America, and implying freedom as a theme. The voice-over confirms this. The scenes shown display the revolutionary war, as shown by the Redcoats and George Washington. This game won quite a few marketing awards, for various reasons. Opposite to Skyrim's marketing campaign, Ubisoft (the creators of Assassins Creed) practically flooded the market with advertisements. This was also effective, especially because Assassins Creed appeals to a large amount of people. People who like stealth games like Assassins Creed, People who like fighting games like Assassins Creed, and people who like games with historical influences like Assassins Creed.

As a third example, I'll look at the Toukiden trailer, once again, below.

This trailer shows a common trend among trailers released later in the marketing campaign. Specifically, not only is this a trailer, but it is also the intro video to the game. While I like this trailer, I find it less effective than the ones above. This trailer does not hint at the theme of the game, and simply focuses on what you will do in the game. However, there is another trailer for Toukiden that I feel is very good. That is its anime style trailer, found here (Again, blogger wouldn't let me upload it). This one, in addition to providing some background for the game, provides story information and shows the tone of the story. While it is a tad melodramatic (in the style of many anime's) it shows a good picture of what the game aims for story wise.

At it's core, what makes a game trailer good is not gameplay, it's the tone you give off while marketing, and making the viewers interested in the story. Additionally, clever use of trailers can be used to avoid some of the stereotypes given to certain game genres.

Sources Used (In addition to the videos above):

http://www.thecmosite.com/author.asp?section_id=1385&doc_id=243912&

http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/19/assassins-creed-3-sweeps-2013-game-marketing-awards/