Working with audio and video - while it does share many similarities in principles - may seem a step away from game design, until you consider game trailers. Advertizing games, especially in today's world, is incredibly important, and a fairly effective way to do so is by creating a trailer. The Mario Odyssey trailer released by Nintendo at E3 has over 22 million views, with the "music video" they made as promotional material coming in at 14 million. Of course, Nintendo isn't a gauge of how effective this form of marketing is for the average game maker, but anyone can post on Youtube for free, and even if only 20 people see it, that's 20 more people who know about your game, which could be 20 more conversations about it or 20 more copies sold.
Obviously demos are probably the most effective way to show off a game since it allows the player to experience a taste of the game, but that means that you want a completed, bug free section that they can play that out of context will represent and hype up the rest of the game. Thus, video trailers can be more effective for displaying games that take place in multiple environments that greatly vary, or for aspects of the game that are still a little buggy some of the time but will be fixed before release. Of course, this isn't to say edit the video to make it look like you have a non buggy game and then release something that won't even run, but it is saying it gives you control over what you get to show and lets you give the player a taste of the whole game's atmosphere rather than an in depth look at one specific moment of game play. Again, as stated earlier, distribution is also easier. People are more likely to view a quick online video than download a shady link in order to demo a game that they've never heard of. Of course using both methods in tandem is also possible, and probably the most effective route, although it may be a bit more time consuming seeing as you have to edit a whole video and create a demo, which most of the time won't end up in the final game in the form it was in for the demo. Whatever way you choose, advertizing is so important because game making is becoming extremely popular, and ads are the best way to prove to people your game isn't just another weird app store game that doesn't function. So talking about A/V, what makes a good game trailer? This article from Games Radar talks about some professional game trailers and the things that they do well. First, the author emphasizes that a good trailer sells the idea of the game, and doesn't waste time on anything that isn't going to grab your attention. In all of the examples that he uses, he focuses on how the trailer appeals to the target audience, again, only pointing out main features that are going to get that audience interested and not wasting time on smaller aspects that are still in the game, but just not the focus. I like his statement of selling the idea of the game, because that's what really makes people want to experience it. It values both the concept and the execution, which is really cool. I kind of hope that we get to create game trailers because I think it will only continue to be important in the game industry, even just as an exercise for solidifying a game concept.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
February 2020
Categories
All
|