Game adverts - not gameplay footage

Guest2

Guest2

Guest2

Soldato
Joined
6 May 2009
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Practically every game advert states "not gameplay footage" or something on those lines. Why don't companies release adverts for games that show "actual gameplay footage" - games such as Crysis 3, Witcher 3 and GTAV would look fantastic showing clips of the proper gameplay.
 
I hate adverts that say "game engine footage" but there is huge difference between this and actual "gameplay footage". Forza 6 is a good example of this, the 'showroom' mode whilst rendered in game, is not actually playable. Ingame gameplay looks very different and a lot less detailed!

Typical marketing bull poo.
 
There are a few aspects to this other than the borderline (if we are being generous) deceit:

Sometimes the ads are put together a long time before the game engine itself is in that state - I remember a company I was working for importing a lot of actual ingame assets into lightwave and staging scenes as per the intended design direction, etc. (inevitably though they used lighting passes and so on that simply weren't possible ingame in realtime at that time :S and the final product fell quite a bit short of the original design concepts, etc.)

Another factor is that often the game engine lacks the cinematic tools to do what they want for an interesting trailer or ad or doesn't have such features at that point in development as its generally not a focus until everything else is done.
 
Jim99 said:
Because it wouldn't look as good as the rendered scenes?

And 99% of viewers won't read the small print.
Click to expand...

This. It's a shame but I guess it's just how marketing works. I do prefer games that show in game footage though as you get a sense of how it is to play
 
This is why I dislike advertising of all kinds and any company that sells or pushes advertising as a monetary stream. The whole idea of advertising is deceptive and I think that it is wrong. I think we should have much much tighter controls on advertising and stop companies from showing something that isn't true with a disclaimer and instead mandate that what you see in the advert is what you actually get. That would massively reduce the deceptiveness and coerciveness of advertising.
 
I think it's even more frustrating nowadays when they don't produce game demos anymore. I used to always play the demo before purchasing however you just don't get a chance to try before you buy anymore
 
Adverts are designed to appeal, virtually every trailer that gets released has people drooling over it with next to no substance to relation to what you'll end up with. Makes me smile, back in the day me and countless others I presume, would buy a game on the poster ad printed in crash/zap alone.:)

To be fair though, there's a wealth of options to sample before you commit to anything these days. The one that dumps on anything is the steam refunding service.
Open beta's, streamers, youtube... what more could you ask.

Can't really see the problem here, an advert is an advert. At least as said, you're not blinded by ad's as it was once the case.

Bob Wakelin has a lot to answer for:)
 
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That's part of the reason why I don't rely on adverts to gauge my interest in games. It's quite easy to be misled into thinking a game looks good on the basis of a well-put-together trailer, regardless of whether or not that trailer shows any actual gameplay footage.
 
I find a lot of game adverts on TV look really rough, being jerky as if the frame rate is terrible, far worse than if running the game yourself... they don't seem to do the titles much justice on the whole, in-game footage or not.
 
What is the "steam refunding service" mentioned above. I have quite a few games on steam i have bought, played once then never again due to it being rubbish
 
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