Game trailers are everywhere within the gaming industry. From AAA to indie titles, game trailers are almost obligatory for most releases. Both cinematic trailers that highlight narrative elements of a game and trailers exhibiting gameplay features are cornerstones of a game’s pre-release marketing campaign.

While game trailers are a fact of life within the industry, what makes them so important? Let’s look at why game trailers are indispensable for games and how we create them!

Why They’re Important

Game trailers are crucial for advertising to their target audiences and instrumental in creating an understanding of the game and what it’s about before it launches. Game trailers can give an impression of what kind of graphics can be expected and the type of music the game will have, and some trailers can act as a way of highlighting key gameplay features.

A trailer should represent a game and give players an idea of what to expect when it launches. We’ve had the opportunity to work with some illustrious clients and instill their brand identity and unique characteristics of their titles in the trailers we make. You can see some of our video ads portfolio to see how we brought ideas to life.

Initial Concept and First Steps

No matter the game, the process begins with an agreement with the client. Once we come on board to craft a game trailer, we calculate timelines for each stage of the project’s production. When we have a fixed timeline for each stage of production, we can then assign artists. Depending on the trailer, we can allocate artists based on the visual style we’re aiming to achieve. When the project’s schedule is laid out and our artists have been designated, then we can really let our creative juices flow!

With a plan in place, we can begin getting creative and produce several different concepts. It’s important we work on a few different concepts that we can use and morph into the final product. Ultimately, our client is our top priority and they have the final say as to what concept we move forward with. Bearing this in mind, it’s prudent for us to have a few different ideas that our clients can look at and choose from.

Storyboarding and Bringing It Together

After our client has selected the concept they want to move forward with, we can begin working on storyboards. Storyboards are essential to our process as it allows us to clearly lay out sequences and the major elements of each scene. The next step is to create style frames based on the storyboards. Style frames are simple visual representations of scenes that are particularly important to introduce a basic visual framework that we can build on.

With a structure in place, we can then begin to animate the scenes. This process requires painstaking attention to detail to ensure that each aspect of the scene is animated correctly and that the principles of animation are adhered to.

Another key aspect of building a game trailer is the sound design. The audio elements of the trailer are indispensable for bringing a trailer to life and help make the animation pop. Once we’re pleased with the animation, sound, and flow of a trailer, we can apply finishing touches to the project to really add detail to it.

What a Game Trailer Achieves

A game trailer could be compared to the cover of a book. While there are many different books on the shelves in a library, it’s the ones with the most eye-catching covers and synopses that get attention. A great trailer captures the core elements of a game and hooks in an audience, and this is where we step in to help clients.

It’s an exciting creative challenge to balance exercising our own creativity with the needs of clients and the brand we need to represent in our trailers. Our goal is for viewers to recognize the product within the first three seconds of a trailer. We often approach this by utilizing a brand’s color palette and familiar sounds associated with them to make our trailers more identifiable.

Whether a client requests we stay close to the brand’s design in our animations or provide the freedom for us to stretch our creative muscles, our main aim is to give products a trailer that truly captures its spirit and informs an audience as to what they can expect from it.

If you’re in need of game trailer and video ad services, you can learn more here. If you’re in need of other services, such as cinematics or game development, visit our services page or get in touch. We’re ready and waiting to help bring the magic to your project.