The Perils and Profits of the Video Game Trailer (ContributorNetwork)

At the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo, developer Guerilla Games showed a trailer unveiling their sequel to first-person shooter Killzone, Killzone 2. The game was one of Sony’s premier first-person shooters, not to mention a console exclusive that battled Microsoft Xbox-exclusive juggernaut Halo, and the trailer was purported to be an example of what could be done on Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 3 console. There was just one problem.

The trailer was a lie.

The game looked good, that was certain–soldiers trapped in a war-torn urban setting, replete with explosions, particles, smoke and destruction. But the problem was that the footage was marketed as rendered in real-time off a PlayStation 3. As it turned out, Sony revealed the footage to be video off the then-current PlayStation 3 hardware specifications. Even years later, Guerilla had to defend its use of what it termed a “target render” to represent the actual game (1).

Game trailers have become as important as movie trailers in selling products, but the technical and fanboy-infested realm of video gaming takes the importance and contention of these trailers one step further. Fans analyze trailers frame-by-frame looking for spoilers or glitches that might indicate software issues. Video that looks “too good to

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