Game marketing mogul, Justin Carroll joins me with game PR expert Racheal Mack as we put our heads together answering the toughest questions game devs face with marketing their games. It’s been great for all of us: lots of cross-learning and skill-refining that come along. Plus, devs are smart people who ask smart questions, which generally means that we get to dig deep for answers.
We’re only four episodes in, but you can watch our previous episodes on the following topics:
Our best episode so far is our latest, one about elevator pitches. I’d recommend starting there.
If you’ve got any questions about game marketing, want to propose a topic, or ask a question?
Ask away.
We’d love to deep-dive a topic you’ve been thinking about, and make it the focus on one of our next streams. You can reply here in the comments, on one of the YouTube videos, or shoot me an email at mjoshua@mjoshua.com.
And be sure to check the show out when we’re live on Mondays at 4pm EST. We’ll be out December 26 and January 2 because of the holidays, but be sure to check us out on December 19, January 9, and every Monday after that!
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You need to build an honest game trailer — without sacrificing an ounce of sex-appeal. Now that we’re officially in a post-No-Man’s-Sky world, everybody is deathly afraid of overselling their game. But I promise that there’s a greater danger: not selling your game at all.
You can have both. It’s not that hard.
Step 1. Show good hitting of things.
When Rocket League’s ‘OMG’ trailer came out last year, it grabbed me with one moment: when that rocket-car hit the ball for the first time. I bought it full price. No questions asked.
Show good hits in your trailer, and you quickly separate your game from the hype train, and open yourself up to being able to flesh out the rest of your trailer with non-hitting-of-things shot. Because once you show that first good hit, you bring confidence to your action-players.
Does your game have killing? Show somebody getting killed. Make those jabs, stabs, and metallic clanks blast at full-volume. Showing in-game action with real chunky flashes with matching sound-effects tells viewers right away: this game has a good hitting of things.
Do me a favor, count the “hitting of things” shots in the firstNo Man’s Sky trailer. It’s not hard. You only need one hand — a problem that persisted through many of the trailers. The bigger problem was that the sizzle already hit the air well-before any steak got on the grill.
Sometimes it’s hard to show good hitting of things. If you’re building a game in a genre without combat (like a management sim, adventure game, or visual novel), then you’ll find a lot less things to hit. But you’re not out of luck: showing a climactic mechanical event, such as a simulated bar completing and producing a reward, or placing a key into a fancy keyhole and unlocking, or picking a dialogue option and showing a happy character response. Each of these register as “good hits” in the player’s mind, and can be instrumental in transforming trailer viewers into players.
Step 2. Show the ideal gameplay.
Say your game is a stealth game: don’t show your character just waiting in the shadows — at least not for the whole trailer. That’s boring.
Don’t focus on the boring bits.
Show players what the ideal action moments are. It’s okay to not-show 90% of stealth gameplay (searching dark corners, waiting under tables, listening for guard footsteps). Hide your low-emotion gameplay and go for the high-emotion highlights! Show the five seconds of payoff from hunting a mark from the shadows for five quiet minutes. Anticipation edits are useful too, but don’t feel obligated to show your less-attractive gameplay in your trailer.
Fellow trailer-maker Derek Lieu says, “The goal for game trailer capture is to show an idealized version of what it’s like to play the game. The only reason it might look “better” than the player’s actual experience is because capture for a trailer is perfected by doing take after take. I think anything goes as long as the capture doesn’t misrepresent the game or its mechanics.”
Derek’s point is clear: as long as you’re building the trailer in-engine and informing actual mechanics and/or plot-points, you’re golden. When Derek made the E3 trailer for Firewatch, he captured the core activities of the game, but in order to capture great “WTF” mystery of the game, he had to work with the devs to construct a moment not in the game, and show that. He details this process on Campo Santo’s blog — where he explains the how and why behind that decision.
Building-out custom scenes for your trailer is often absolutely necessary for your trailer. However, it’s essential that they run in-engine and do not betray the core interactions and experiences of your game. If you’re building your game to run primarily on PS4 hardware, it’s probably a bad idea to rely on any performance that’s only possible on a top-end PC — unless the general public’s version of the game will be able to do the same exact thing. Integrity here counts, especially since the player community will hold you in contempt if they discover that you’ve done something otherwise.
Your goal here is to first identify: what is my ideal gameplay? What does my game do the best? Show that, build tools to showcase it if you have to, but whatever you do, show your game doing what it’s the greatest at.
Step 3. Build your world extravagantly — but do it honestly
Awe may be the single most important aspect of your game. This is the part of your trailer where you’re revealing how big the world is, showing the most beautiful shots, the most iconic and pristine moments. There are no limits to what you can do, say, and how here. Seriously. But there’s a reason why this is Step 3.
Only once you’ve qualified your lead are you able to provide your pitch. And gamers feel the same way: if the game has qualified itself with a good hitting of things and an ideal gameplay establishment, you can go on to say whatever you want.
Take the launch trailer for Alien:Isolation for example. There’s not a ton of hitting or ideal gameplay moments, and most of it focuses on setting and tone, but that’s because they’ve established the hits: the alien kills you very suddenly. You run. And the hits come. It might not even say everything in that trailer because it assumes the hits from previous trailers have hooked you. But those popping moments leave a ton of play-room.
Facts matter, obviously. So don’t show anything that’s not a qualified fact. If you’re using accolades, don’t misquote. Be sure to cite your source. And as long as you don’t use artificial HDR lighting (that your game can’t pull) or any other disingenuous tricks, run free. Make your trailer as impressive as it can be.
Once you work with the baseline foundation of honesty, you’re free to do just about anything.
Step 4. Deliver the goods (release a game that matches your trailer)
This is the easiest step for me, because I edit trailers and I don’t have to worry about this at all. But for you, the developer, this is where the goods come into play. If you’re able to make good on all the promises you’ve put forth, then that’s wonderful. And speaking of wonder, it’s the talent of an experienced craftsman that bridges the gap between ambition and wonder.
Don’t be afraid to leverage your previous successes (and failures) towards the direction of your brand. Your name might not mean something this time; but it will after you find your audience. Hold on to your longevity: wear it around your neck.
And if at first you release a game that doesn’t match the hype of your first trailer, be like Slain: Back From Hell, which spent several months refining itself after launching to a poor reception — until it “came back from hell” with a better hitting of things.
At the end of the day, people remember your game for what it became (even if at first it didn’t make a good impression).
Step 5. Double-check: did you cover Step 1 and Step 2?
Once you’re almost done your trailer and second-guessing each shot, come back to Step 1 and Step 2: are you showing a good hitting of things? Are you showing your ideal gameplay scenarios? If so, you got the most important parts. Those are the parts people will remember even if they forget everything else in your trailer.
Towards the end of the process, the finishing touches often take way longer than you expected, but know that the more polish you put into the edit, the more it shows. Your trailer may be the first impression your game makes with a player. Be sure to make it count.
The best movie trailers make me cry. It doesn’t happen often. But it’s happened. Game trailers, on the other hand, have never once made me cry. Yet the best ones are getting closer.
The best and most-powerful game trailers toss us through a ringer of ups and downs. That rapid-fire assault of emotional intensity is what grabs us. It’s what makes us say, “I want that.” The thing is, most game trailers forget the player’s emotions. They tend to land as one-note threads that focus too much on the features — and not enough on the game’s emotional roller coaster. It’s a shame because that roller coaster sells your game.
Take the final trailer for Life Is Strange for example. Track the emotions as you watch:
It starts full of fear, then tension builds. And just after the heroine sits and thinks, the tone shifts. The music turns into a melancholy hope. The colors shift to a warmer hue. Suddenly things feel hopeful. It seems like the game gives us the tools to try to fix things. Suddenly we’re in a montage all of the terrifying storm shots contrasted with scenes of optimism. It shifts from dark, to light, and back and forth. Scenes of danger come after scenes of loving support. Notice that progression: fear, tension, optimism, joy, destruction, hope, storms, friendship, and blood. That’s how you capture a player’s emotional journey!
There’s just one problem: you aren’t making a game like this.
Unless you’re in triple-A development, your trailer can’t include high quality character models with emotive human acting. The litany of positive press quotes and top-tier production elements are a pipe dream. So for most of us, we’ve got to find a way to make a trailer that captures the emotional journey in a different way. We have to think smaller. Weirder.
“Weird” is a badge of honor for us indie guys, and we have to wear it with confidence, but that doesn’t mean that we get a free pass for being oddballs. We need to work hard to capture the emotional journey through (and around) our eccentricities.
I think I have a solution.
Capture the player’s emotional journey. And I mean that literally. I record real players playing the games I’m making trailers for. I capture the sounds they make, and I watch how they react to the games. These are people I know that aren’t impressed with me or starstruck in any way. It’s just normal folk having honest reactions to the game. Sometimes they’re not positive reactions. And that’s okay. Their emotional lows mix with the highs to provide you the blueprint for your roller coaster.
Feel free to copy this approach.
While it’s hard to get people over to my place to play the games, it’s so worth it when they do. It puts a human angle on the games. It allows me to find the games’ key qualities that resonate with players. And it lets me hone-in on those highlights so that I can show those moments to would-be players through the trailers.
Take a look at my first example:
Recording players playing Threshold helped me to find the emotional gold. Players truly resonated with the “ah-ha” moment of discovering a puzzles solution. I also saw that women preferred the game more than guys. So right after about four play tests, I learned right there that I should record women playing the game with guys so that there’s clear audio contrast and the players are verbalizing their experience (which few did by themselves). This worked splendidly.
The emotional journey wasn’t complete, however, until I figured out how to get the low-moments in there. Players started to show visible signs of frustration as they went through the “what the crap do I do?” moments. And I realized that these moments were critical to making the breakthrough moments enjoyable. So I used both the players’ frustration and discovery experiences to build that coveted roller coaster. That’s the real story for a puzzle game: a player’s journey from confusion to clarity, often repeated.
I have no illusion that I make the best game trailers. But I do believe that there’s something ripe and potent about this player-journey approach. It’s not to say that it’s a one-size-fits all solution. Each game genre is completely different: a spacecraft engineering game will require a different trailer storytelling method than a four-player brawler. But the overarching rule is consistent: the player’s emotional journey is always what makes them want to play your game.
My next trailer example takes us to the arcade. More specifically, the arcade action game genre. Story doesn’t matter here as much as the exhilaration of play. It can be a challenge to capture the emotional journey of this genre, but this is how we went about it for Super Flippin’ Phones:
Notice how the journey starts at comedy, dives into the game’s tension, ends in a moment of defeat, and then resolves in another “brave attempt,” punctuated with more humor. This was key for showing off the arcade action. We needed to show the victory and the defeat in a play-through; Winning is intense. Failing is easy to recover from. It’s an emotional roller coaster.
Emotional contrast is essential. You never start a romantic comedy with love birds already together; they have to be as far apart as possible or it their coming together lacks weight. Similarly, the first Hotline Miami’s trailer focused on this same up-and-down journey (quite literally). There’s anticipation, coldness, a “How could I do that?” moment, small success, dread, and then victory (albeit still melancholy). That sense of loss was key to that game, but it’s somewhat absent in Hotline Miami 2’s trailer. While Hotline Miami 2’s trailer is cooler, richer in game content, and full of energy, it lacks the depth of the low-notes in the first game’s trailer. It’s ostensibly still a cool trailer (and an amazingly well-produced one), but the low degree of despair keeps it away from the same emotional range of the first trailer.
Ask yourself: what are the player’s emotional highs and lows in my game? If either end is lacking in the trailer, the player will subconsciously feel it. The emotional ride will “taste” bland. Think of good Thai food. It focuses on four key notes: sweet, sour, spicy, and salty. Too much of any one of those and you crave more of the other.
Say you have the lows and highs sorted. Next, you have to figure out how you’re going to capture the emotional journey.
If you wanna me like me, get the game in front of people and then study how they play. It’s important that they play in a neutral space. Make the player as comfortable as possible so they can provide honest and thoughtful feedback. The more homelike and comfortable, the better. Record that experience both on-screen and the player’s vocal reactions. Video is helpful if you’re doing party games, but the setup, lighting, and environment can make normal players uncomfortable and provide an inauthentic experience. Most players don’t naturally talk or express when they play, but they will if you put multiple people together and encourage them to figure the game out together. Review all of the player input and feedback. This is exhaustive and can take a lot of your resources, but it’s key to finding the essential data that will drive your game’s trailer and subsequent marketing.
Say you do all of this and then find that the player’s voices and input don’t work for the trailer itself. That’s when you need to get creative in how you show the player themselves without them noticing. Check out how we did this in the next trailer:
We used a brilliant voice actress (Leonora Haig) to embody the player’s imagination within the game. The game’s creator and I were ecstatic about how this one turned out, but it started with much humbler beginnings.
The first thing we did was captured his emotional journey playing the game. The journey was there, but it didn’t resonate with tested audiences. You might see why in this earlier cut. We knew the emotional journey was good and rich. But we needed a better storytelling device. After retooling the script and hiring Leonora, we ended up with a trailer that we’re extremely proud of.
Sometimes the player’s emotional journey needs to be told through abstract means. One size never fits all and each project requires a unique approach. But the overarching lesson is true: emotional journeys sell games, and if you tap into the player’s heart, it’s just a matter of time before they hit that “buy” button.
[About the author: M. Joshua makes indie game trailers. You can read more of his indie game trailer tip articles on his blog, or review his portfolio at mjoshua.com. He’s available for trailer production and consultations at mjoshua@mjoshua.com.]
You already saw this First Look trailer. You already know whether or not the Nintendo Switch will have a place in your life. But do you know why you have this already figured out in your mind? I would suggest it’s because of how this trailer is produced and edited.
Can you remember any of the faces of the people playing the Switch in this trailer? I can’t. But I can remember their emotional reactions or their looks of concentration, and I felt connected to the experiences they were having.
I could see myself in their shoes.
This is game-trailer gold.
You may have had a different experience with this trailer, but I, for one am really excited to discover the price-point on this device — there’s a chance I’ll be there day one. The key is that I felt like I was having these same experiences with the Nintendo Switch as I watched. That may be because I love playing games on the go and with others, so the mileage may vary. But here’s the key: When you show people in an experience that they can insert themselves into, you grab your game’s audience.
It also helps to hand your game off to players and see what they do with it.
How do players prefer to play your game?
When you’re showing your game at a PAX or Gamescom event, you control the setup and you control the experience — it’s not authentic to how player actually play your game. This can be very hard and scary — since you have no idea what players are going to to when they get their hands on your game. But try this out: just give a few regular players (not developers) your game. Then see what they do with it.
What do players do with your game when you give it to them? This leads to a whole litany of questions from that experience:
How do they sit?
At a desk?
On the couch?
On a plane?
Do they share it with their non-gaming family members?
Is any of that special?
What surprises occur?
You’re going to be surprised. That may be because of how foolish their play experiences seem to how you intend. Or they may come up with something you never thought of. When I shared That Dragon Cancer with my game group, we had fourteen people cram into my living room. We found ourselves passing the controller from scene to scene — meaning everybody got to play and feel connected to the experience. We didn’t plan that; it just happened naturally — and it worked perfectly. These kinds of discoveries only happen when games are given a proper chance to be put in players’ hands.
These player-surprises can make your marketing material story. Who wanted to play Skyrim on an airplane? I don’t know, but give that person a medal. That created one of the most powerful selling points on the system — and I could easily play the game on my laptop in a flight right now, but the idea of playing it with a controller on a personal sized screen that sits in front of me (and not overheating my lap)? That’s attractive.
Put your game in player’s hands.
See what they do with it. Make note of the surprises. It doesn’t have to be an open alpha event — just a few friends are fine. This will tell you so much about what actual player experiences are like — and most importantly: how to show your game.
Local multiplayer and co-op games have the biggest advantage in this department — it’s why Nintendo Switch’s strongest trailer moments relate to player interaction. But there’s still benefit to trying this out if your game is, say an RTS or a hidden object puzzle game. There’s this thing about heartfelt player reactions that tell a story even greater than that which is grasped on-screen.
Consider showing your players in your trailer.
The most powerful tool in comedy is the human face. Since they’re the first thing we learn to connect with after we’re born, it’s amazing that there’s so few faces in trailers. We connect with emotions by seeing them on somebody else’s face. I would argue it’s the standout feature in this Move or Die trailer. And again — you don’t remember any of the actual faces, but you remember their emotions.
Your connection with your players can come through those sincere reactions of player’s faces. And when they’re not sincere, players recognize that immediately. The tricks to capturing honesty is an art unto itself — we’ll get to that in a future post. For now I’ll leave you with a reflection:
We updated That Dragon, Cancer’s trailer last week to herald the new iOS version — I couldn’t be more thrilled about how this opens up the player audience. I’d strongly encourage any and all to check out this fantastic game: especially now that it’s on a platform many “non gamers” use for play.
See scared girl with bloody bandages — and missing arm.
Go into scared girl’s head.
Explore dungeons through girl’s perspective — on a rigid first-person grid (in pseudo 2D).
Enter battle when walking into black spirit thins.
Enemies surround you in battle.
Hold-touch the screen to charge a touch-slash.
Parry enemy attacks by swiping along their attack-arms.
Slash the enemy enough and they turn into a bloody mess (Yay!).
This trailer makes the explanation of some of the most difficult-to-explain gameplay seem as easy as spreading butter. The director of this trailer, Marlon Wiebe captured so much about Severed because of a process of that he detailed in his trailer blog. In short, this was not the first trailer that Marlon made for Severed, and he sought to right some wrong impressions made from the previous trailer he made.
Marlon said:
After working with the guys at Drinkbox Studios on the previous trailer, they came back to me with a few things that people didn’t realize about the game after watching the trailer then playing the demo.
The key takeaway is to implement an iterative approach to solving a trailer’s gameplay communication problems. Drinkbox noticed players thought you tapped to attack in the game instead of the actual slicing. So Marlon tried an Apple-style circle, only to find that didn’t work right; instead he modeled a hand, gave it a screen-indicating drop shadow, and started with a sped-up charge-attack to draw eye-focus before turning into a slash.
These are all creative problem solutions that took some discovery and trial-and-error. Iteration, essentially. A first-time trailer for a hard-to-explain game will run into a bunch of challenges and problems. When you take time for discovery, you can communicates a game’s complex ideas in record time. Smart-and-steady wins the race.
Also, if you haven’t had a chance to try Severed on Vita or iOS, I couldn’t recommend it more. It’s probably my favorite game I’ve ever played on my phone. And it’s just come out on Wii U and 3DS.
ZAM published an article about the trailer-making craft that featured a lot of input from myself and Derek Lieu. The article highlights my production goals for That Dragon, Cancer’s trailer — and how that informs the importance of emotional journey. You can also a lot out of what Derek says about his production of the Firewatch trailer, and some deep insights from Kuldeep Shah. Check it out.
Almost none of TheWitcher 3’s trailers are particularly exceptional: they don’t capture the player’s journey — or what makes TheWitcher 3 unique. I can say this with confidence after completing the sixty-hour story, watching most of its 46 trailers, and deep-diving the unexpected ways the game deals with love. Despite the weakness of the game’s trailers, they do one thing incredibly right: they secure a HUGE player-base — one strong enough to help developer CD Projekt Red to become worth $1 billion.
How did these trailers help secure so many players?
Iteration.
These 46 trailers and dev diaries work because they compound in unison — multiplying as a string of touch points, forcing viewers to inevitably ask, “should I buy this?” Sure, that huge number of trailers is possible from a studio with CD Projekt Red’s cashflow.
Indies can use this multi-trailer approach too — even with a tiny budget.
You have to first ask, “How many stories can I tell about our game?” Every detail about your game has the potential for more exposure. Quick snapshots can go a long way. Remember that The Witcher 3’s trailers weren’t great at informing the gameplay experience, but stuck to core branding and just showed more of the world. They trusted that under-informing video impressions would be enough to whet an appetite. And boy did that deliver.
Keep your project in front of players — that’s the key lesson here. By the time somebody sees The Witcher 3: Game of the Year edition’s trailer, they’ve likely seen at least one of the other forty five trailers. And once a product is familiar, it’s that much easier for players to hit that “buy” button.
Some indies have tried this multi-trailer approach successfully. Take Broforce for instance. That game was in Early Access for two years: warranting update trailers out the wazoo — which kept that game in front of players. That’s invaluable. The Broforce team kept pumping-out the update trailers post-release too, which again, kept the attention flowing.
Multiple trailers won’t work for everyone. Especially if you don’t have any time or money to spare for them. But for those who are able to keep pumping out content, the multiplied exposure can be very worthwhile.
Practical multi-trailer tips:
If you’re gonna step-out and try this approach, you’re gonna need some wisdom, planning, and smart re-purposing of assets to craft a unified brand around your game. This kind of process takes a lot time, but these tricks can save you a few dozen hours:
1. Map your plan of messaging and delivery.
This isn’t a mandatory detail, but it will definitely help you to develop a core strategy to stagger your trailers evenly (say, once a month) to keep from an over-abundance or an under-abundance of market saturation.
2. Craft reusable trailer assets.
For the first time around, refine your title graphics to be appealing-enough for later reuse. This allows new footage to be be slotted-in while establishing your core brand as high-quality.
3. Determine a core and consistent voice.
Notice the “Hell Yeah, Bro” voiceover in the Broforce campaign. You don’t have to do something so overt, but each trailer should feel like it’s clearly connected to all of the others.
4. Cut fast and loose.
Don’t worry about getting the edit perfect straight out of the gate. Let velocity be your friend. Don’t worry about having the perfect messaging. Your messaging is “lots of content” and updates, which shows you care.
5. Try new things (like dev diaries and experimental “weird” trailers).
Show and team members being themselves can be a great way to break-up the expectations on what your game is. Focus on what makes your team unique, while interspersing shots from the other trailer cuts. Or try something completely different and maybe a little crazy. Nobody got kicked out of the indie game space for being too weird.
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Let me know if any of that helps your game. I’d love to hear from devs who have tried this multi-trailer approach and hear how it worked.
Mankind Dividedsubjected me to systemic prejudice countless times over my two play-throughs, yet its release trailer focuses on empowerment — showcasing all the superpowers you can use to conquer foes (which are limited in-game). This isn’t false-advertising, this is broad-shouldered video game advertising at its smartest. Square Enix knows players want “do what you want” simulators — regardless of whether or not they have themes of social injustice.
Power sells games.
Listen closely. The voiceover points to this power-focus: “If you try and rip the world apart, someone will always put it back together… You can kill freedom. But you can’t kill progress.” You are that someone and that progress is a super-charged robot fist — with a dozen beat-up-oppressor abilities.
You have to make players feel powerful and in-control. As such, Deus Ex games are in a bit of a bind: as stealth games where hiding and hacking are often preferable to all-out power-punching elbow-katana cyborg battles. But this is where we can learn from Mankind Divided’s lack of restraint and subtlety in the trailer: it harps on the power-usage. Then it builds towards the P.E.P.S.arm-gun-blast conclusion. It ends leaving viewers feeling like they can do anything (as Adam Jensen).
There’s a lot of challenges and problems to this. I could belabor Lord of the Rings’ “lust for power” theme or address how weird it is to cast a white guy (working for the most powerful people in the world) as a “victim” of social oppression. But that’s the game’s responsibility to handle with tact and nuance. The trailer’s job is to get players in the door — to make the would-be players feel the power to do as they will.
This “do-as-you-will” emphasis makes people feel like kings. And it’s why they pick up the controller to begin with.
You made your game’s trailer — and something isn’t quite working. You (and your testers) love your game, but that love is getting lost in translation to video. In my experience, trailers often feel lifeless — like a skeleton going through a living person’s motions — up until a clicking moment. Once you get to that key breakthrough, it feels awesome. Often, you just need one readjustment for it to all come together. These tricks can get you to that moment.
1. Track eye-flow.
Notice where you’re looking. Which part of the screen has your eyes’ attention? Eye-flow is a delicate and essential thing: motion speaks to our survival instinct. When things move, your adrenaline spikes. Is there danger? Where is it? Use this to your advantage.
You’re driving their eyes.
Move their attention all over the screen, but keep in-mind where you want them to go — and what shape you want that motion to move in. Sudden changes in movement feel jarring, so consider pausing or cutting to a shot that complements the shot before it. Work your way to your destination. Avoid jump-cutting-around (unless that is a part of your game somehow). Your key here is to flow — keep their eyes where you want them.
Super-important detail: if your gameplay has tons of action all over the screen, you need to hone the focus on the one thing you want them to look at. Feel free to be super-controlling here and clarify things or it gets really disorienting otherwise. Focus where you want people to look — by any means necessary.
2. Try sound design.
Your players feel the game through the sounds, though they might not realize it. If you’re showing a trailer with just music and no sound effects, more than likely, it feels dry and lifeless. Some talented composers and editors can use music alone to convey interaction, but in that scenario, there’s still some serious sound design and composition.
Your trailer will go from boring to amazing in very little time with the right sound designer, since their work will make each of your cuts and edits feel completely intentional. Use your game’s sound designer if they’re talented enough. If not, I have some recommendations of amazingly talented sound designers that have been a pure joy to work with: James Marantette, Adrian Talens, and Jon Hillman.
A good sound designer will improve your trailer — more than anything else you can do.
3. Consider the See-n-Say approach.
A title card can save your trailer from confusion — with that extra push of explanation. This is called the ‘See ‘N Say’ approach.
Game trailer savant, Derek Lieu says, “Make a title card that says something about your game — then show the thing. This seems like such an obvious thing to do, but I have consulted on multiple trailers that think telling is enough.” Derek’s right: you have to show that idea in action. This makes people believe what you’re saying — you’re backing it with evidence.
Notice how this approach works in the Inversus Launch Trailer:
4. Shorten your intro.
Answer player’s biggest question: “What do I do in this game?” Do this and every other detail suddenly becomes relevant.
Get to the point. Now do it faster.
How many seconds pass before you show gameplay? If you answered, “10,” you may be alright. But if you said “30,” your viewers will scrub-through your timeline for anything interesting — you’re likely to lose them once they start that.
Heck, make your whole trailer faster.
5. Hide your HUD.
Your HUD is the least important thing in the trailer. If you can hide it, you should. The same goes for any in-game text.
Any information that isn’t primary will attempt to steal your viewer’s eyeballs. You don’t want your viewers trying to read something they can’t. That’s frustrating. Plus, they don’t know how to read your user interface anyway, so showing it won’t help.
It’s okay. Just let the action tell the story.
6. Teach how to play.
You know how to play your game, but nobody else does. If your game is even remotely complicated, you need to build literacy — fast.
You have twenty seconds.
How fast can you teach somebody the core basics of your game? Start by saying, “Here’s how you play:” and then fill in the blank. Now try it again, but faster. Build your tutorial backwards and forwards in your mind. When you really have these basics down, you’re ready to teach viewers in record time. Only then will viewers be able to read the crazy action at the end of your trailer — feel free to go buck-wild!
7. Do you show uniquely-distinct gameplay?
You know the market is flooded; you need to be unique — hammer on those qualities nobody else has. Jam on what makes your game truly different.
Show what’s special about your game.
Adam Saltsman talked at GDC about 6 games that do a great job of standing out and selling themselves, where he outlined how one needs to make games that are recognizable at first glance. You need to be instantly recognizable, but your most distinct gameplay needs to be your primary focus. And you don’t need to be shy about it.
8. Try the rule of thirds.
Don’t live in the center of the screen. That’s boring and confrontational.
Photography teachers teach you to focus in a “third” of the frame — this allows lead room and feels more natural. The trick is to imagine your screen as a tic-tac-toe board and each cross-section is where a person’s eyes feel the most comfortable.
Read-up on the rule of thirds, then re-compose your shots to emphasize one of the “thirds” of your screen. It makes a huge difference; even if you’re making a 2D game — where the rule of thirds might be trickier to implement, but can greatly improve the way your game looks and plays.
The rule of thirds isn’t always the right tool for the job. Remember that you can also try lots of other helpful theories on composition.
9. Flaunt your style!
Fellow trailer maker, Derek Lieu loves to showcase stylish games. He says that if a game has enough style, you can coast on that. Of course, show informative gameplay. But if something is stylish or cinematic enough — you can get people hyped up enough to look into the game. Case in point? Watch the trailer he made for Quadrilateral Cowboy.
Your game’s style should be wholly its own, so what could it be like if you were to lean harder into that stylistic inspiration? What does your game’s style remind people of? Maybe play a word-association game to get friends and family brainstorming about what might be a related style that you can re-purpose for your trailer.
Also important is that your whole project has a consistent unified style. Is there another way to make each part feel more connected? Make those little touches that bring everything together.
10. Build mystery.
Start by stripping things away.
Don’t show anything but what you absolutely have to. Then present questions related to the setting and story. Don’t give any answers away. Let them wonder.
Take your time. Realize that this can be a delicate dance between literacy and mystery. You need people to be able to read your game, but you also need them to want to know more.
While perhaps the hardest “trick” of this list, it may be the most valuable — this is the only way to hand your players something: questions. They’ll hold onto those questions ( perhaps subconsciously); then they’ll translate those question into action — seeking for answers.
Consider Hyper Light Drifter’s second trailer.
Notice how many questions this trailer raises. What’s behind that door? Who’s that dog? Where are they going? And what is that giant black thing at the end?!? (I like to call this last question a WTF-moment — essential for building trailer mystery). Every one of these questions was carefully engineered to make viewers thirsty for answers.
11. Variety. Variety. Variety.
All-around master of the craft, Kert Gartner says, “Capture ten times the footage that gets used in the trailer — since it’s so hard to get good clean moments. The word we use again and again is variety: variety of enemies, characters, environments etc to show the breadth of the game. Then, just get a lot of it!”
A player’s second question is, “Will there be enough to do?” The easiest solution: overwhelm their senses with diverse settings and verbs. Here’s an idea: reuse the same action while changing scenes, like in the Dungeon of the Endless trailer.
Zoom distance provides another form of variety. Pixel-graphics scale well, so zooming-in very close can get provide same-scene variety that compliments eye-flow — and keeps you trailer rapid. Kert Gartner is a master of this — which you can see in his Hotline Miami 2 trailer.
12. Aim for impressions — not sales.
You want people to buy your game, but it’s even more important that they want your game. You build that desire by compounding impressions over time. For example, No Man’s Sky had an amazingly impressive string of trailers that, over years, created enough impressions that it broke Steam store records at launch — even at a full $59.99 asking price. It could do this because it build-up impressions. My favorite trailer of recent memory was Enter the Gungeon gameplay trailer. It jam-packs the action so well, that I discover new details upon each viewing that I never even noticed in the main game — even after 90 hours with it.
Your key question should be, “Is the trailer entertaining-enough to warrant multiple views?” Are they going to feel rewarded for re-watching? Did you jam-pack it with advanced-level-play material?
Derek Lieu reminds us: “A successful trailer doesn’t mean the person buys at the moment it ends (though that’s great if it happens of course), but if they want to know more about the game right away — that’s a success. Then it’s up to the game to do the rest of the heavy lifting.”
Try these out.
Let me know how it goes. The worst thing that could happen is that you tried something out that only improves your trailer a little bit. But hopefully, you’ll find a wholly excellent trailer that connects with your intended player-base. And when that happens, that little extra effort is all worth it.
