Gamespot's The Point: Misleading Trailers

Johnny's video on the GS front page about why trailers are misleading is pretty good. Should be a must-read for this forum because we do tend to hype games. And we especially do so with trailers.

It makes good points based on close deadlines and the need to make demos/trailers more appealing than they are based on the hopes that they'll be able to make the whole game look/played like that at the end.

Another point that's important to keep in mind with trailers is that content is condensed. Particularly, the hype of GTA 5's trailer versus how we all regard it now, is evident of this. Condensing 30 hours of gameplay into 5 minutes is quite a promise to deliver on. If they were just 5 minutes driving around or a random mission where you shoot people, it wouldn't have nearly the appeal. And a lot of companies do this. Very much like a sitcom episode that advertises all of their major punchlines in the 30 second commercial.

It's a good explanation of why. Of course, it becomes more of a problem in our future, when trailer and final gameplay are visually less distinct, but the freedom of the gameplay could be completely off. Right now you can often easily tell, that a trailer is CGI or something they hope to achieve. In the future even the core may be fooled by trailers more often than they are not.

that's why i usually wait until the game is out and watch some real gameplay of it.

@drekula2: Here's your link TC

There is nothing wrong with them, as a business decision it's extremely smart. It's our fault for hyping them up so much and setting ourselves up for disappointment.

I wouldn't disagree with you, but some games (specifically Colonial Marines) abuses the system and uses it as false advertising.

But you're mistaking something very important here. Colonial Marines was a whole different story because they did it in a very shifty and wrong way. It wasn't just a trailer they showed us but actual gameplay of the game and repeatedly told us this is what we were going to get and what to expect, then bang did a full 180.

I agree Colonial Marines was disgusting, and if any other business tried that they'd be facing many law suits on their hands. I just meant we shouldn't look too deep into early trailers and expect too much from them because half the time it's just to generate hype for their game.

Just look at Deep Down as a fine example, this was their reveal trailer for the game before the PS4 came out, and now look at the actual gameplay for it.

It's nothing new in entertainment business. It had been happening for a very long time with movies before you even brought up this issue here. It is dirty, but you can't blame companies for trying their best to advertise their products. However, it's bad when a decent game doesn't get advertised - Syndicate for example, or it gets misleading advertisement like Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Who remembers the Bioshock Infinite E3 gameplay trailers ?

Can't believe I fell for that.

One of the worst offenders in recent times. The finished product was so underwhelming.

Bioshock Infinite did give us the impression that the skyworld was interconnected and skyhooks were a meaningful way to travel. Turns out, the world is just a series of isolated shooter levels. And skyhooks were mainly used for escaping combat only.

You're saying it's our own fault for falling for their attempts at misleading us.

Everywhere but in advertising, such practice is considered a scam.

Not only did I fall for Bioshock Infinte, I Pre-ordered the Premium Edition in the Process. :(

I couldve spent the money on something worth while..... Like Drugs !

We've had so MANY games to learn from already, so yes we're idiots for falling for it every year (not saying what they're doing is right but still). I just laugh now every time I see trailers these days with over the top graphics, I can only imagine how much The Division will be downgraded too.

I find the vast majority of video game trailers to be completely misleading because they are advertised as movies and not games. It's the norm not to show gameplay, but CGI scenes that paint a picture of the story/premise. Then we buy the game to play the gameplay they never showed.

I find it kind of messed up considering what makes this medium unique is the gameplay, yet it has to advertise itself as if it were another form of entertainment to sell.