Are videogame trailers to be trusted?

[CyberAkuma]

If there is something that has always been a big source of hype, curiousity and a sneek-peek into games, videogame trailers have become a big industry and a large significance to video game publishers and companies to market their product.

As a video game enthusiast Gametrailers to me is like a double-edged sword.
I can bring up hope and it can also crush expectations - specially if the videogame trailer doesn't represent at all what the final product is like.

Here are a couple of questioning videogame trailers that (In my humble opinions) did not deliver what was promised. These trailers are fairly new (with some minor exceptions)

Saints Row 2 PC Trailer [http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44216.html?type=flv]

The Premise:
The game displayed the much anticipated PC port of the wonderful sequel of Saints Row.
The PC trailer showed the game in an astonishing widescreen resolution and cunning framrate surpassing that of the console version.

What the game delivered:

Terrible preformance issues, graphics wree awful, the game doesn't support Wide-Screen resolutions, the game is locked at 30 FPS, average framrate is 7 FPS no matter which videocard you run the game on.
Mono sound (Sound only comes out from the left speaker) Graphics don't look nearly as good as the trailer.


Grand Theft Auto IV PC Trailer [http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43531.html?type=flv]

The Premise:
The game diplayed in a smooth framrate that surpasses consoles, glorious long-distance view which showed the entire Liberty City in a new way.

What the game delivered:

Horrid Preformance Issues. The game rarely runs faster than 20 FPS even on modern videocards. The game required 2 extra unneccesary programs to be installed to even run the game at all, harsh DRM copy-protection locking out legit users. Numerous bugs both getting the game to work and in-game bugs. STEAM even refunded [http://www.bingegamer.net/2008/valve-offers-refund-for-gta-iv-rockstar-acknowledges-small-number-of-problems/] game purchases.


Race Driver GRID Trailer [http://www.gametrailers.com/player/32013.html?type=flv]

The Premise:
The videogame trailer advertises the trailer as 100% true In-Game footage displaying a fast-paced Racing game in astonishing 60 FPS.

What the game delivered:
The game is locked at 30 FPS.



Call Of Duty 2 TV Commerical [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNz_CrXC6eY&]

The Premise:
Glorious unseen graphics on a yet-to-come console (The Xbox360) with cunning preformance.


What the game delivered:
While the graphics in the game where astonishing, they looked nothing like the trailer.
The trailer was entirely pre-rendered and showed nothing what the game had.
The trailer caused a debacle in some countries (UK among others) because their laws do not allow commercials to diplay anything other than the real product. The trailer got banned in serveral countries.


The question is, when you look at a videogame trailer, do you really expect the game to be identical to what the videogame trailer promises? Or do you look at videogame trailer with some form of scepticism? Should videogame trailers be 100% in game and display the final product to it's fullest authenticity or is it okay to make videogame trailes made up entirely of CGI?

Note: This thread is only about the topic 'Are Videogame trailers to be trusted? not wether if the mentioned games where good, bad, critically acclaimed or if it was bashed by fans and critics alike. I beg of you to stick to the topic.

 

[Peach_hat]

Mad props for owning the topic, like, dominating it.
Too bad for you the only preview videos I watch are game play videos.

All the same, I give you props for the research etc.

 

[NXMT]

Trailers are just meant to leave a good first impression. If it can at least get your attention then it has done it's job.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Trailers of any kind are not to be trusted. Never, ever.

/thread...

 

[Skalman]

Trailers in general shouldn't be trusted.

EDIT:

Or um...
what he said:

Trailers of any kind are not to be trusted. Never, ever.

/thread...

 

[L33tsauce_Marty]

I think the people who made the Saints Row 2 and GTA4 ports should be smited/flogged.

Back on topic, no.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

It's a glorified commercial. It's trying to convince you that yes, this game will be the best thing ever and you'll be cool for owning it. Here, look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY

It's a photo wheel. It's not even technologically relevant. But just from watching that I want to buy a dozen.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

The point of trailers are to make you want to buy the game. So they can't be trusted any more than adverts for other things. I mean, you don't honestly expect that if you go to Burger King then you will be greeted by a slightly disturbing plastic king who will give you a free bacon double cheeseburger and then do a little dance, do you? Adverts are never real and cannot be trusted. That includes games.

 

[Valiance]

It's designed to make you buy it. They even lie about "in-game footage" trailers.


For PC:

Saints Row 2 I heard sucked.
GTA 4 I have first-hand experience to tell you it runs like shit (wouldn't even run on my friend's machine, so we tried it on mine, works "okay" but still mediocre...)
Grid I never played, but if it's locked at 30 FPS, that makes me feel worse about it.


CoD: That's too bad.

Like I said, they try to make it interesting and special, even if it's not. Granted, it makes me surprised that people expect trailers to, you know, what they're buying.

 

[fix-the-spade]

The point of trailers are to make you want to buy the game. So they can't be trusted any more than adverts for other things. I mean, you don't honestly expect that if you go to Burger King then you will be greeted by a slightly disturbing plastic king who will give you a free bacon double cheeseburger and then do a little dance, do you? Adverts are never real and cannot be trusted. That includes games.

True, sort of.

True, trailers are obviously not going to show the bad point. The problem is that generally they bareface lie about what's in the game.

Grid being a good example, when they said was '60fps' what they meant was '30fps, but you won't find out till you've bought it, haha up yours gullible consumer,'

The only times trailers don't do this is when they make no promises (Valve ones tend to be some cut up gameplay footage and plot teasers, or something only vaguely related to the game) or so far ahead of time everyone knows they aren't representative (Killzone 2)

 

[meece]

they're nice to watch and look awesome but not to be trusted.

not to be trusted one centimeter.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The trailier of a game, like a movie trailer is designed specifically to impress the audience, not to give them an impression of what you're actually going to get. Action movie trailers often show some of the most memorable action sequences which, if taken literally, imply the entire movie is an adrenaline fueled thrill ride. Comedy movies present trailers that are essentially a short clip show of the funniest punch lines leading to the assumption that the entire movie is hilarious (Look at the movie click - the number of actually funny moments in the movie is roughly the same as the number of funny moments in the trailer). Trailers, like any advertisement are designed to emphasise the good bits and minimize the bad parts, all in an effort to convince a person to pay for a product.

And what's this about 30 FPS being a bad thing? Have our standards for frame rate become so incredibly high that 30 FPS isn't good enough? Hell, televison shows are only presented at 25 FPS and movies themselves run at 24, and I have yet to hear someone actually seriously complain about framerate issues there.

 

[L33tsauce_Marty]

And what's this about 30 FPS being a bad thing? Have our standards for frame rate become so incredibly high that 30 FPS isn't good enough? Hell, televison shows are only presented at 25 FPS and movies themselves run at 24, and I have yet to hear someone actually seriously complain about framerate issues there.

It's not that bad but when you are in a firefight it drops to 10-20 fps making it impossible.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

And what's this about 30 FPS being a bad thing? Have our standards for frame rate become so incredibly high that 30 FPS isn't good enough? Hell, televison shows are only presented at 25 FPS and movies themselves run at 24, and I have yet to hear someone actually seriously complain about framerate issues there.

It's not that bad but when you are in a firefight it drops to 10-20 fps making it impossible.

20 FPS still presents what's considered to be a "constant image" to the human brain. Below 12 FPS a person can distinguish individual frames so you have a point about 10 FPS. But, just because a game is "locked" at 30 FPS doesn't mean there is a problem. Most of the time if you have the power available the game will ALWAYS run at 3O FPS

 

[bkd69]

Until the product is on the shelf, everything is lies. Previews, trailers, screenshots, lies all.

 

[rdaleric]

I always ignore promotional videos, even if they contain actual gameplay. I refer you all to Penny Arcade's description af "bullshots"

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/09/12/