Should the gaming industry be moving away from Cinematic trailers to reveal a game?

For clarity when I refer to a Cinematic trailer I refer to something that is entirely prerendered and not designed to accurately represent the final game at all. I.e. an opening cutscene trailer an RTS.

The thing that got this thought going for me was the realisation that a lot of people across the internet didn't seem to understand that the Star Wars Eclipse trailer (which is very strong visually) is basically in the same avenue as a Blizzard WoW expansion trailer. It is entirely CG and probably won't really represent the game in terms of quality. I knew this and I suspect many people on this website know this but the impression I got from the broad comments across the net is a sizeable chunk of people don't.

I think part of the problem is "In-Engine" trailers are super common now and they show the game basically better than it will really look, but at least use the engine and models. This has sort of created a real foggy line for certain kinds of games where a Cinematic Trailer and an In-Engine trailer could look pretty similar (see. Call of Duty) but not always (see. Diablo). I'm not against In-Engine trailers. I understand you want to put some spin on your presentation.

For some games, like the Blizzard ones I mentioned earlier, it is clear that the trailer for WoW or Diablo 3 isn't going to look like the final game. We know that.

Using a wholly CG trailer to reveal a game gets a little bit sticky, because there is nothing to compare it to and it required a level of slightly cynical background understanding to know that its basically a bullshot.

So I suppose that brings me to the thread title: should game devs/publishers even be doing this? The audience for gaming has never been larger and worse informed so I'm tempted to say that without a clear "does not represent the actual product" that maybe it's slightly irresponsible. I don't mean to defend ignorance but this is how you get cries of "downgrade!" and "the puddles!". I think there is definitely a place for CG trailers but using them to reveal a game just creates trouble. It used to be obvious at a glance what is possible for a game to look like and what is clearly just a tone piece but it is increasingly difficult to tell without knowing the scope of the game or perhaps even the budget.

A bit of a rambling thread and I recognise defending uninformed people from being hoodwinked isn't exactly the most important concern but none the less. What do you think? Cinematic Trailers as reveals: fun or a DISASTER waiting to happen?

Gaming as a whole would be a better place if every CGI trailer was as self-aware as this one:

I'd be all for an industry that can only sell games based on actual gameplay, but even then you can run your game on a $5,000 rig and call it "gameplay." There's just so much room to falsify video in this day and age, and no way to enforce "proper gameplay" imo. Like, you could make a gameplay video 5 years before launch, rewrite the engine, and then you'd be forced to release entirely different gameplay at that point.

I think it's a problem without a solution, and devs that choose to sell a product based on shitty footage should be held accountable by their fanbase. I know I view CDPR more negatively after Cyberpunk's launch, I hope people are more critical of any trailer CDPR releases as a result.

I think it's fine to do cinematic trailers. Sometimes you need to strike the marketing iron when it's right, even though you might not have solid in-game footage to show off and explain your game from top to bottom, so these kind of trailers are a good alternative. They can still deliver hype, and could also translate the mood if done right, which is also important when communicating your game/product.

If anything, CG trailers are more honest than gameplay or in engine trailers running on vastly blown out hardware which very carefully pick out the most impressive parts. I, for one, don't know how much I trust the graphical fidelity of Hellblade II based on the gameplay trailer. Witcher III and Watch Dogs are much worse cases of false advertising than Star Wars: Eclipse, which straight out states that this is the "cinematic" trailer.

The danger there is what happened with guardians of the galaxy. 45 minutes of a blah blah deep dive. More people wrote that game off because it was all gameplay. Take a game like Far Cry 6. Long during the hype cycle I was most excited due to the tone piece. As the game got closer to launch and they started showing gameplay i realized it was just another far cry game. I will pick up and play that game at some point because of the tone piece. Because of the cinematics. Honestly cinematics get me hyped. I remember the first real world parody ad for animal crossing. Not a lick of gameplay. I knew what I was buying. If the next gta opens with the Bad Boys theme and just a snippet of florida man in his boxers and breaking the fourth wall of the cops with the cameraman then you can count me in. But if you just show me gameplay. There's really nothing to care about.

Gameplay is developers asking you to use your imagination. I really want to see the developer's imagination and that is cinematics. Especially when there's so many games being sandblasted into our face. This thread made since during the PS1 era. Solution, all that cinematic stuff you see can be pigeonholed into a quicktime event and there's your cutscene. 'F' to pay respects. Happy?

I think it's fine as long as there is a clear distinction that it is a prerendered trailer and not trying to deceptively look like gameplay such as the infamous Killzone 2 trailer.

I'm probably the 1,543,095th person to say it, but making video games is hard and some companies want to build hype with a fancy CG trailer instead of pre-alpha footage that looks like garbage. It's also not a good look if they were just to show a logo with nothing else to it, ie. Nintendo with Bayonetta 3 (before this year) and Metroid Prime 4.

Lastly most of these companies have shareholders to please and they need to show where their money is going to instead of seeing a logo followed by years of silence.

It's hard to demand gameplay trailers or demos when we know they take more time and occasionally crunch.

I'm very okay with a cinematic trailer, especially early on in development. Convey the idea or feeling of the game, give me a sense of the gameplay, because no matter what you show I'll be hesitant to buy into the hype until I actually see the game running.

I think there's something to be said for a tone piece as an initial introduction for a game. That doesn't necessarily equal cinematic trailer. Persona 5's first teaser was basically just harsh text over a couple images of chairs, from what I remember. There's a risk of misrepresenting a game that way, but assuming it is done properly, it could help sell the pitch of a game while it's actively being developed.

There's also something to be said for not hyping games for multiple years that require so many different levels of trailers. Showing a game 6 months before it's release, and show gameplay alongside the cinematic trailer is probably the most ideal way to do that.

Also, while some companies like Blizzard make all of their own stuff, some of that is outsourced. Probably because the developers are busy making the game or how there are companies dedicated to making teaser trailers.

All told, there's probably more benefits to having those type of trailers than not. Some of the main negatives I think of are trailers being deceitful, but that's typically a larger problem with not showing the game off and stuff like that.

@hayt said:

The audience for gaming has never been larger, sure. But it's never been worse informed? I just don't buy that. Information on games (and information in general) is more accessible than ever. It's worth noting that events like E3 and The Game Awards get mainstream media coverage in a way that video games usually don't get. So while it's entirely possible that some people who don't normally engage with the media surrounding the gaming industry would see that and think it represents gameplay, people who normally engage with this stuff (i.e., like the people on a forum for a video game website) are well aware that this isn't gameplay. And I think it's safe to assume that the type of person who is so unaware of traditional video game marketing who sees that trailer and thinks it's gameplay is also going to be the type of person who has not yet purchased a current-gen console or PC capable of playing that game anyways. It's effectively a non-issue as far as I see it.

I was just thinking about this while finally messing around with the Matrix Awakens demo this evening. It looked incredible while watching Giant Bomb watch it, but then I ran it on my actual PS5 and while I haven't watched the Digital Foundry video to see what they think of it, I can say that it was often dipping below 20fps, there was a lot of clipping and pop-in during the post-demo city tour segment and overall it seemed like a pretty bold move to throw that out into the public. In one sense it's fascinating, the sort of stuff that gets closed door meetings at E3 and we never get to see. Even more importantly, it's not a real game and won't ever be so who really cares? But then I think back to the demo they showed last year, which was honestly far more incredible to me than this Matrix thing, and you quickly realize how pie in the sky that was currently unless you're running an absolutely monster PC setup.

As to the topic at hand in this thread I don't have any real thoughts, it's marketing and I think marketing ought to do whatever they think is best at the moment to build excitement for the products they're tasked with selling. It's a necessary evil and in some cases I'm pretty sure I've heard/read developers say that these trailers can help them understand the bigger picture of what it is they're making. Read enough Jason Schreier and you come to understand sometimes animators and texture artists can have very little if any idea what sort of game they're making and these concept trailers, much like key art, can help them find a coherent vision and focus in on particular influences and styles. I'd be willing to bet that even if the games industry came together and collectively agreed to stop showing these kinds of trailers to the public they'd still be producing them in-house for the sake of their own teams...at which point, just put it out there and let the marks get hype, yeah?

Now, stuff like the Wonder Woman "thing" I'd be totally on board with ditching. In some sense it's just as insightful as the Wolverine teaser Insomniac released earlier this year, but on the other at least that clip gave us some sense of what Wolverine they hope to bring to the table. The Wonder Woman thing was purely fluff and nobody gains anything from that except maybe hardcore Wonder Woman fans who get to go "woo-hoo, a Wonder Woman game!" for 10 seconds.

A lot of good points in this thread. Particularly the point about trailers that use actual game engine stuff being extra labour for the devs. I hadn't considered that the all flash CG trailer is easier on them because it's almost always outsourced.

I still think that the audience for games is always way way bigger any forum or even social media and that YouTube comments are one of the best glances at that part of the audience. I still would totally believe that there are people who only engage with games as youtube trailers then items to buy in a store (digital or otherwise). I do totally agree with the suggestion that 1. You can't inform people that detached so why worry and 2. Of course it's slightly dishonest, it's marketing.

I guess then issue I have is maybe less with the trailers and more with how to manage the expectations of someone who is not really paying attention.

I share the frustration with the number of these trailers we keep seeing. Sometimes I have to find a press release or a news article to even find out the genre of game they are trying to sell. It can feel counter productive.

The other option is to wait longer to announce a game, when they have a gameplay build worth showing. One definitely worth considering. If they can have a cinematics team cook up a cinematic to get us excited I suppose it's not terrible under some circumstances. You can pick up some clues. Like in Eclipse it seems likely there will be space combat gameplay from what they chose to feature.

Well, given that it's basically the more expansive form of "bull shot", of course they should stop it.

I think it’s fine that they make cinematic trailers, especially if it’s less abusive for the programmers. But I personally get no value at all from them, so I selfishly wish they would go away. Or just be a static image with a release date, I’d get more out of that.

I think it's fine, but like, I don't think I've gone out of my way to watch one in a very long time precisely because it is not a representation of what the game is in any way.

The cinematic trailer has its use and I think that Star Wars Eclipse was actually a pretty good example of one. It revealed the game, gave a sense of the tone and mood we're to expect and explained how the setting is clearly from a period prior to episodes 1-3 but not too far removed as to not already have those donut starships around.

However after the second or third cinematic trailer for a game I start to loose interest. In fact I think that there's a place for a first trailer and a second one which reveals the release date. But after that show the game or go dark for a bit and show the game later.

Yes, as soon as i confirm a trailer is pre rendered i stop watching, i don't care.

There are a few cool pre rendered trailers that are entertaining but not many, in fact hardly any.

Yeah, this is how I feel.

While a cinematic trailer is not the only way to build hype for your game, I understand that it is probably the most effective at setting a tone. I also understand that it puts the onus on the developers to deliver gameplay that matches the tone.

Should trailers talk?

I just want cinematic trailers to also have SOME indication as to what kind of game it is. Like, if it's a sequel you know what your getting, but when it's a new IP, it's hard to get excited when you don't even know genre.

A good example is Slitterhead (which won't be my thing no matter what probably, but still). Everyone is all hyped about the Silent Hill dude, but I got big "team based online co-op vs monsters" vibes from that trailer, and unless I missed a press release there's nothing about what that game will be, mechanically.

I'm not bothered. You see what a game is before it comes out, most of the time.

@besetment: They should talk smack.

I could not care less when I see a cinematic or prerendered trailer; they do absolutely nothing for me and are actually offputting, if anything. I'm extremely hype-averse for things that aren't out yet.

A recent example that bothered me (and I'm going to explicitly talk about this without looking anything up, because I think it helps illustrate some of the problems I have with them) was the Left 4 Dead-looking vampire game from one of the press conferences (maybe Sony?) earlier this year. I don't remember the name, and didn't care to, because if the game is so far off that they can't show anything that isn't prerendered, then why should I care?

I remember that a few of the GB people were trying to extrapolate game mechanics from the characters' actions in the trailer, as if they weren't put in there specifically just to generate hype/'look cool,' and afterward someone else said 'man that looks awesome; I want to play that.' Play what?! There was not a single shred of gameplay; that game could be anything! It's just completely bewildering to me and it's something I'll never understand.