Today’s Massive Poll has been suggested by philbert8. He is unaware that he suggested it, but his comment here gave me the idea.
Concept trailers, pre-rendered trailers and teaser trailers are popping up on TSA more frequently than ever before. As part of the TSA news team I’ve posted quite a few of these videos and I’m beginning to wonder if we should be posting them at all.
The Dead Island teaser trailer contained no game-play footage at all, but went viral thanks in part to hundreds of gaming websites posting it. Overnight, the title went from being almost unknown to a must have pre-order.
The trailer was a fantastic two minute movie and went on to win the Gold prize for Internet Film at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Since the teaser was released it has become clear that the game is more about smashing zombies with a chainsaw – heart wrenching scenes of children being bitten are few and far between. Alex previewed the game and said ‘What it’s not, for good and bad, is anything like that teaser trailer. ‘
I appreciate that publishers need to build hype for their games, it’s a tough market and bad sales can close down an entire development team, but do these teaser trailers serve any purpose other advertising the game? Obviously all trailers are adverts – to a degree – but most include game-play footage, which allows you to judge the title. We certainly see a decent amount of activity on most of the teaser trailers we post, suggesting a good level of interest in them. But is that just aimless curiosity or an actual desire for information on the game being shown?
So dear readers, my question today is, are you actually interested in these teasers? Are they big adverts that publishers are sneaking in to gaming websites under the guise of a trailer or do you like watching them to get the ‘feel’ of the new game?
hazelam
i put i like them because many of them are good, so just live up to their name too well and are just annoying.
but a good teaser can really raise the interest level in a game.
colmshan1990
I voted yes, although the best teasers do fit in some gameplay footage.
Here’s my favourite (for Dungeons of Dredmor, you’re probably all sick of seeing me bang on about it so I’ll stop now):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuSQuG6Jv74
TheDeathAvenger
I think the more interesting question is, “Does watching these teaser trailers make you more likely to buy the game?”
Teaser trailers are often lovely things to watch, but whether that translates into actual sales would be interesting to know.