So what's with Blackhole's trailers?

[ChimTheGrim]

I brought this topic up on another forum and there were mixed reactions. Some people were in agreement while others felt it wasn't a big deal. I feel it kinda is. I think the trailers for heroes VI after the debut trailer have been sort of underachieving in their goal to get me interested in the game.


First some sample videos:

How a trailer should be:

Heroes VI Debut trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBGPcRBnQU

SC2 follow-up trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSjRXI5X ... re=related


How Blackhole/Ubisoft does follow up trailers:

Stronghold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcT_70mXqaw

Sanctuary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHsUdJfF0Wc


Few questions:

1) Why aren't they presenting the gameplay or story, but rather a guy I don't want to know or see?

2)You don't see Mike Morhaime with his persona explaining Diablo III to me in their trailers, so why can't these smaller companies learn from the biggest and the best?

3)Why are there two people explaining the story to me? Where is the content? What is the point of this style of marketing?

[theLuckyDragon]

Questions 1 and 3: But they are presenting the gameplay and story... One guy talks about the gameplay and the other about the story. I really don't understand why they didn't choose one person to do both, but it doesn't keep me up at nights. What does slightly bother me is that the guy talking about gameplay sounds like he's reading text from a prompter whereas the story guy at least seems to be speaking freely. Overall I'm not impressed.

[ChimTheGrim]

I just feel like these two guys are taking away from the feel you get when you're excited to watch a trailer and then *boom* two guys telling me about a game rather than me seeing actual content that is apart of the game. I was only disappointed because i was so excited to see something in the game and then I get to see 2 minutes of 2 nerding guys making ridiculous gestures like they themselves are Orcs. It was really strange for me, this style of video marketing.

[ThunderTitan]

Because they aren't making endless amounts of cash from WoW, or have their own in-house CGI team, so that's the only cinematic we''ll get for teh game.


And if you've never seen a video of a Blizz employee talking about Diablo 3 gameplay and story is because you haven't been paying attention. There are plenty of those on fansites. The difference is that they also have plenty of gameplay footage from blizzcon builds too...


IMO this is Ubi's attempt at connecting with the fans more personally, but they're still new at it...

And they have released gameplay footage, just not lately, probably because Blackhole is kinda busy trying to finish the game.

[ChimTheGrim]

Because they aren't making endless amounts of cash from WoW, or have their own in-house CGI team, so that's the only cinematic we''ll get for teh game.


And if you've never seen a video of a Blizz employee talking about Diablo 3 gameplay and story is because you haven't been paying attention. There are plenty of those on fansites. The difference is that they also have plenty of gameplay footage from blizzcon builds too...


IMO this is Ubi's attempt at connecting with the fans more personally, but they're still new at it...

And they have released gameplay footage, just not lately, probably because Blackhole is kinda busy trying to finish the game.

This is hurting the fanboy in everyone, but I'm using Blizzard as an example mainly because I believe their trailers are awesome. I'm going to state that I'm not a fanboy. My friends and I play all systems.

I am using Blizzard as an example, but the same holds true for most companies like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Bioware, etc. And when these other companies make developer diaries they don't speak to the audience as if they are 6 year old children watching a video. Blizzard releases trailers for Diablo III, then developer diaries. Not the other way around.

I'm not sure how old you are, but Blizzard was a relatively small company before WoW was released. Also, their cinematics in Warcraft III (came out in 2002) were of the highest quality at a time when Blizzard was a company of roughly 80 to 100 developers--the Warcraft III team only being 35 to 40 developers. Now the company is much bigger and richer than they could have imagined due to the large success of WoW. Yet this is not an excuse for Ubisoft/Blackhole's amateur marketing tactics. If you have a high profile game like this, you need to know how to keep the audience interested for the sake of the gamer and the game-maker. The Ubisoft website for M&M: Heroes 6 is great. It looks awesome. The screenshots are great. They look to be the highest quality. So why then would the same developers shoot themselves in the foot and release amateur videos that only hurt any momentum that the game was having?

[mr.hackcrag]

So why then would the same developers shoot themselves in the foot and release amateur videos that only hurt any momentum that the game was having?

Some people like amateur videos.

[ThunderTitan]

I'm not sure how old you are, but Blizzard was a relatively small company before WoW was released. Also, their cinematics in Warcraft III (came out in 2002) were of the highest quality at a time when Blizzard was a company of roughly 80 to 100 developers--the Warcraft III team only being 35 to 40 developers.

Hahahaha... 80-100 people a small company back in the early '00's... and you question my age.

And while we're on the subject, Blizzard actually had a special in-house cinematics team since at least before SC (which also had state of the art FMV for 1998 btw), so the size of the WC3 team had little to do with the cinematics.

Blizzard releases trailers for Diablo III, then developer diaries. Not the other way around.

And that's exactly what Ubi did, which is why the videos in question are for the last 2 factions only... while there have been actual gameplay and trailers in between the videos you posted, which you probably just missed.

...

Seriously, your actual problem seems to be more about the quality of the presentation then the actual idea behind them and their release plan.

Yeah, Ubi isn't very good at this whole "connecting with your players through video interaction by the community manager etc.", but that's because they're really new at it and obviously don't want to spend too much money on them so obviously the quality is gonna be the same as self made youtube videos...

[ChimTheGrim]

I'm not sure how old you are, but Blizzard was a relatively small company before WoW was released. Also, their cinematics in Warcraft III (came out in 2002) were of the highest quality at a time when Blizzard was a company of roughly 80 to 100 developers--the Warcraft III team only being 35 to 40 developers.

Hahahaha... 80-100 people a small company back in the early '00's... and you question my age.

And while we're on the subject, Blizzard actually had a special in-house cinematics team since at least before SC (which also had state of the art FMV for 1998 btw), so the size of the WC3 team had little to do with the cinematics.

Blizzard releases trailers for Diablo III, then developer diaries. Not the other way around.

And that's exactly what Ubi did, which is why the videos in question are for the last 2 factions only... while there have been actual gameplay and trailers in between the videos you posted, which you probably just missed.

...

Seriously, your actual problem seems to be more about the quality of the presentation then the actual idea behind them and their release plan.

Yeah, Ubi isn't very good at this whole "connecting with your players through video interaction by the community manager etc.", but that's because they're really new at it and obviously don't want to spend too much money on them so obviously the quality is gonna be the same as self made youtube videos...

It wouldn't take Ubisoft much money at all to hire 2 people who know what they are doing to edit some great gameplay trailers and utilize a marketing strategy that makes sense.
80-100 people is not very big. Nintendo employs over 3,000 people. Sony employs WAY more. Microsoft employs WAY more. Ubisoft employs A LOT. Did I mention EA? or in that time Activision (which Blizzard is now apart of). So yes, 80-100 people is not big at all. The Warcraft III team was around 39 members which I can bet is around the same size as the Ubisoft/Blackhole team for HoMM VI I'm suspecting. So how is it that you can make this arguement "but but but... they don't have the money that Blizzard has." Blizzard has money because they make smart choices. It has nothing to do with the money.

This discussion is about the issue of Blackhole having some of the lamest trailer videos I've ever seen in the industry (the debut video was great, after that I don't think the videos are up to par--which it seems you agree with to a degree).

[Mlai]

I've always seen devs show up and talk about their games, in the "dev diary" videos I've watched.

Maybe your problem is that you don't like their faces, and you feel they lack charisma? A game designer is not required to be Brad Pitt, you know.

Maybe they should have hired an official speaker to do the dev diaries.

[ChimTheGrim]

The point I'm making is that when you have a big announcement like a new faction, show me the faction and some story, gameplay, or cinematic of the faction. THEN, after that give a developer diary. That is the norm. It is not normal to have a huge announcement, and then instead of showing the actual content of the product that i want to buy, I am shown some guy. SOME GUY. Why is this guy telling me things about a faction when I don't even know the faction yet? its not intelligent marketing. None of the other companies do that. Sony, Nintendo, Blizzard, Naughty Dog, Konami, Capcom, etc all do developer diaries AFTER the initial videos. That is the point I'm trying to make.

[Mlai]

I thought the initial video is the CG trailer where you saw that ancient angel hero's death.

Talking about the various factions within a game definitely belongs in the category of "dev diaries."

[Angelspit]

Maybe they should have hired an official speaker to do the dev diaries.

According to me, Xhane had just the right amount of charisma...

[ChimTheGrim]

http://videos.uk.ubi.com/videos/vrpy338 ... ing-of.htm

Ok, they show that they know how to make a trailer.

[Mlai]

So basically you just didn't like the "over-excitement" of that bald skinny French dev in the earlier trailer/ dev diary.

Once he calms down and dresses like a French adult, and we have the composers who also dress and speak like working adults who don't live in a basement, you like it.

[Kalah]

Yes, that's right, you got it.

[ThunderTitan]

http://videos.uk.ubi.com/videos/vrpy338 ... ing-of.htm

Ok, they show that they know how to make a trailer.

On a purely conceptual level that's exactly the same as the ones you where complaining about...

You really should think more about what you dislike when disliking something, because as people pointed out already it wasn't the "person talking about game"but the way they did it (and expecting a dev to act well is just too much).

[ChimTheGrim]

http://videos.uk.ubi.com/videos/vrpy338 ... ing-of.htm

Ok, they show that they know how to make a trailer.

On a purely conceptual level that's exactly the same as the ones you where complaining about...

You really should think more about what you dislike when disliking something, because as people pointed out already it wasn't the "person talking about game"but the way they did it (and expecting a dev to act well is just too much).

In the abstract the music video is only similar in that it introduces people in the video. Yet the purpose of the video is presented from the start.

It's not about what I like and dislike, its about following industry trends that make sense. When you make a video that gets you excited to see the game (you've been waiting after all) and then over half of it is 2 guys telling you a story as if you were a 6 year old, yea it is frustrating that you could tell me that that is the same as what this music trailer is doing. The music trailer is playing the music while doing interviews with developers as if they were asked questions. This music trailer has the thing I called "flow" and "content." I know you're not going to listen, but the music video also has people who are introducing the music right off the bat and then it flows into interviews with other people. This is completely (completely) different than showing gameplay footage for 1 minute and then BOOM nerd guy telling me a story. What? 1 nerd guy wasn't enough? Try two talking down to you. They really didn't think that through or plan it well at all. And I'm pretty sure if most people who had seen it (not forum fanboys) had a voice on here they would agree. My friends and I were laughing at these guys it was so bad.

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah, your problem was that you saw it as them talking down to you, we get it already...

[ChimTheGrim]

Yeah, your problem was that you saw it as them talking down to you, we get it already...

So you're saying that talking to the audience as if they are a 6 year old child getting a bed-time story isn't "talking down" to the audience? Honestly, that's exactly what it is.

[ThunderTitan]

Problem is that's now how you framed your complaint in your OP.