The changing face of video game advertising

Set aside the many obvious ways in which video games try to emulate that film feel (gameplay, cinematics, graphical style, level design etc.) and there is another, slightly different area in which the movie business has had an effect – advertising.

One effect improvements in graphics technology has had comes in form of greater abilities to advertise. No one really wanted to watch pixelated figures dart around their TV screen for a minute or so, and so game trailers tended to look like this:

Apart from looking like a cheap Guy Ritchie film it also fails to show any actual gameplay. Viewers are given no clue as to what the game will look like, feel like or play like – hardly a convincing marketing strategy. But, when the alternative is to show the audience a mess of top-down splodges and blocky font, it’s hard to blame them.

Humble beginnings for the blockbuster 'GTA' game franchise

 With the advent of 3D graphics technology we start to see a more cinematic style creep into TV adverts for games. Continuing with the Grand Theft Auto series, let’s look at the trailer for GTA III:

Kind of cheesy, fairly bad graphics (by today’s standards) and yet remarkably more engaging than the effort for GTA 2 simply because we get an idea of what the game is like, whilst also being entertained with faux-cinema presentation.

Move forward to Rockstar’s latest release, GTA V, and we have a fairly polished trailer for each of the main characters:

Nice music, good humour and pacing but also graphics that show us good gameplay and also shine with that Hollywood edge – compared to GTA 2 it’s a visual feast and, I’m sure most would agree, quite cinematic.

It’s a small thing, but thinking about why games should want to emulate that film style begins a look at how a film’s success starts in the living room, and for major game releases copying that strategy it can have a great effect (GTA V’s $1 billion in three days is testament to that).