Does anyone else here think that the modern, pre-rendered, “cinematic” video game TV spots are a bit silly? Just look at this Starcraft 2 commercial and tell me what you think:
Do you know what I think about it? I think it it is very well done, but it has little to do with the actual game which is a classic top down RTS. I can’t help but wonder who is this ad targeted at. It makes the game look like an action packed shooter – either Gears of War type of thing, or an FPS. The people that Blizzard should be trying to sell this game to are RTS fans who are likely not going to be impressed by such pre-rendered intro. People who would be impressed by it on the other hand, will take one look at the screen shots printed on the back of the box and realize this is not an action game. It’s perplexing.
Different example: does anyone remember this old TV spot for Dragon Age: Origins?
This commercial was actually created specifically for marketing purposes. None of the footage you see in the ad can be found anywhere in the game. It doesn’t even use the game engine. It is actually hard to believe that this is a commercial for an old-school, number crunchy RPG game with a lot of isometric style tactical party based combat. A game that was elsewhere marketed as BioWrare’s return to the roots of the genre. In fact, that’s the reason I picked up the game in the first place. Because I heard about it before i have seen the ad – which by the way, made the game look very un-interesting and un-appealing to me.
This has been happening for a while now. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen gameplay footage in a TV spot. Ever since video game publishers started to launch these aggressive campaigns they have stopped showing how the games actually look like.
Is there a point to this sort of false advertising? Am I missing something? Or is this just the case of marketing companies hired to do these campaigns not knowing how to sell video games. Perhaps they just fall back on what they know best – which is pandering to the lowest common denominator. This usually works for movie trailers, but video games are a different type of entertainment. They are supposed to deliver many hours of entertainment over a long period of time. No one will buy a game from the genre they don’t particularly enjoy on an impulse. Or they will do it once, and then learn to pick their games better next time. That’s why I think these campaigns are missing their mark. They are reaching out to the wrong group of people.
Then again, maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?
This is just the next step in what used to be absurd box art and “exclusive” screenshots. Virtually every broadly-applicable video game complaint I’ve had in the last 10 years, was summarized in this article. The relevant portion:
Myself? I hate them – the practice is totally scummy, but I’m sure it isn’t going to stop. Blizzard has been doing it with Diablo 3 as well.
@ jambarama:
Did you see the new DC Universe Online trailer promo? I’m at work right now so I’m not going to look for it right this second, but look it up. It was on Reddit yesterday or so.
It’s like a short movie with plot and dialog featuring prominent DC character battling each other to the death. Very cool and very impressive until you realize that its all for an MMO game in which you will not be allowed to play any of the characters you have just seen, and you will spend most of your time grinding mobs of level appropriate mooks for experience.
Is this the one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoZuN-p4gKc
What dreck. Of course you can’t play as any of those guys because either the game would be absurdly unbalanced or it would have loads of stupid & arbitrary limits.
There was the same question asked of Bioware when they released their Marilyn Manson trailer. If I remember right, the ad was deliberately not targeted at core gamers because this market was already ‘won’. Basically, any RPG enthusiast would have bought Dragon Age regardless of commercials or trailers, so there was little point making one specifically for them. The same can be said of StarCraft 2, any RTS player will buy it without second thoughts, and these ads won’t change that because said players have been eagerly waiting for this game for years and probably already played the BETA extensively. Other players might be lured by the promise of an interesting story, or an action packed fighting against aliens, which these ads successfully hint at.
That explains the DA:O trailers that stick to cutscenes and don’t show a minute of gameplay, and try to entice gamers from other horizons by promising epic battles, blood, sex and cute goth girls. I can’t say if their plan was successful or if it backfired by pushing away some of the RPG players scared that the content of the trailer might actually reflect the content of the game.
Well I’ve not been at all interested in Starcraft II because of the RTS elements. Been there, done that. That and I don’t have any hardware that runs Windows or OSX. I do remember really enjoying the cutscenes in Warcraft II and Diablo II. Maybe some retro style gaming will resonate with me.
Bullshots and pre-rendered scenes leave me cold.
That said – advertising is advertising and I guess they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work.
heh, i was just thinking Starcraft 2’s ghost of the past trailer (a longer cut of the one posted earlier : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_E83GfWM-A) fits Warhammer 40000: Space Marine (a third person shooter/brawler thingy) than a Starcraft sequel
It is like copperfish said, and if you played Blizzard games before, you would know: This is typical Blizzard. Their games always had cinematic trailers as you progressed and those always were (to me at least) a big plus in playing the single campaigns.
To me Blizzard is very successful in designing game stories and immersing the gamer in them with good dialogs, these trailers, among other things. So this ad is nothing knew, actually, but cool and catchy nevertheless.