Game Trailers

[Squink]

I can usually make a decision on whether or not I want to buy a game by watching a few seconds of a gameplay video. If I like what I see, I'll dig out some reviews and watch longer gameplay trailers.

So, I find it annoying when I click through the trailers in Steam (or wherever) and find that every single one of them is plot-related guff, such as two people staring out over a wasteland and chatting about the fall of humanity. Or a CGI spaceship taking off while a voice overlay tells me that some aliens came and now it's time to fight back.

I want to click into a video and see exciting gameplay, not listen to the background story! Why do games companies advertise with this chaff instead of showing the meat of what I'll be playing? Grab me immediately!

 

[Squink]

The thing is, most of my exposure to new games comes from Steam’s main page and that’s where I might see a game for the first time. If I click into three videos for one game and each of them is a cinematic which gives me no idea of the gameplay, I’m unlikely to hunt the game down on YouTube.

I just think the publishers are missing a trick by advertising a computer game in the same way they would advertise a film.