Show gamedev progression, especially when released far apart.I realize this is a year-old topic, but I'd like to do this as well. There's no one way to do a trailer campaign, but here are some best practices that sum up some of my points:Ĭontent in trailers should overlap as little as possible It's confirmed some of my beliefs, and also challenged others. I hope this five part series about different game trailer campaigns was interesting and useful. For further information I highly recommend this GDC Talk by No More Robots' Mike Rose. Community building is increasingly the advice I see recommended by game publishers and PR workers. I'm not sure how the game would've performed if not for bedrock of fans and good will. This trailer campaign was all over the place, but The Behemoth has very loyal fans, so the game was still very successful. And it wasn't as if BBT was gone from the world the entire time they were still showing at every PAX, and Comic-Con. Showing anything from the game provides a modicum of hope that something is happening, but it's tiring, boring, and/or frustrating to watch when the game feels like it's standing still. Ultimately, I think it's better to go silent than to give long and drawn out content. They had to roll with the punches when they found out they wouldn't hit their release date, and with an indefinite future it was near impossible to come up with a marketing strategy. This is one reason the game took so long to develop as they iterated, received feedback, and iterated some more. What are the takeaways from BattleBlock Theater's campaign? Like the game, this was a case where there was no set strategy, so until the release window, it was all improvisation. I don't think this one was as successful, but the game was out on Steam at this point so it didn't really matter that much. I didn't think it would be possible to repeat the notoriety of the first trailer, but I thought it would be funny to make a "sequel" trailer to the first one. While this trailer offers different content from the previous ones, it can be less interesting to watch a trailer for a game that's already out.Ībout a year later came the most successful BBT trailer. In general, trying to make up for past shortcomings feels like a dicey thing to do because a game's launch is typically the most exciting part, so how do you get people to pay attention? Also, this trailer released so soon after launch, press outlets were probably less inclined to give any more coverage (if any). I'm not sure how much this story trailer helped since it was after release and typically view counts drop off, but surprisingly this still has a high view count relative to the other trailers. Story is one thing the launch trailer didn't cover in its gameplay heavy approach. I think this was a similar problem that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood ran into because their early marketing focused on multiplayer. The earlier trailers skewed multiplayer heavy, and a lot of the demos at PAX were multiplayer focused. This was made because we got the impression people didn't realize BBT has a story. Signs of progress between trailers are satisfying because they imply momentum and promise for an even better finished product.Ī new trailer came a year later with a title for the game, but no release date. This meant it was much harder for the game to make visual "leaps" between trailers. The finished game does have more art and polish than this first trailer, but the core of it looks about the same. He might disagree with this, but to my eyes, a lot of art in this trailer looks "done." It's great he can make something that looks "finished" so quickly, but this is a double edged sword for marketing. One of The Behemoth's strengths is its art style by co-founder and art director Dan Paladin. In my case study about Ooblet's E3 2018 trailer I mentioned it's good practice to make a game look as different as possible in each new trailer, especially if they're released very far apart. The music, cute characters, co-op platforming, and Tony Hawk style coloring hooked me in. I didn't understand what the game was there seemed to be both multiplayer and single player elements. I was ecstatic the first time I saw this trailer. BBT didn't even have a name when it was announced it was referred to only as "Game 3." For better or for worse, the Behemoth likes to show off their games as early as possible they have a history of showing their games at conventions for multiple years before release.
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