Also, for anyone saying "it is just a teaser"... (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 17:33 (2887 days ago) @ Ragashingo
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 17:43

Teasers matter. As someone who has made quite a few teasers and trailers over the years, I know a thing or two about how they work.

They matter for a few reasons, chief among them being the fact that the people making the trailer have a very short, narrow window to tell the audience something about the product they are promoting. So, whatever they do show has been very carefully selected. A full-blown trailer will provide more detailed info, an overview of the plot, in the case of a videogame there will usually be some representation of gameplay so the audience has an idea of the kind of game they might be buying.

But a teaser has a more narrow focus. A teaser typically has 3 primary goals:

1) To announce a product

2) To "tease" or generate curiosity, building anticipation.

3) To communicate something about the core identity of the product

This last point is key to our discussion here. Teasers don't usually have enough time to communicate much info about the plot or story arch of a game. They might give us a basic premise as a starting point (in this case "The Cabal are attacking the city"). So instead, teasers usually rely on TONE to communicate as much as they can. They provide a glimpse into the mood, the atmosphere, the visual style of the game. It is important for the tone of a teaser (or a trailer) to match the tone of the actual game because game creators are selling an experience, and the teaser is supposed to build hype for the kind of experience the consumer get if they choose to buy the game. If the teaser doesn't match the tone of the product, then they run the risk of being called out for blatant false-advertising and pissing off customers.

So again, looking back at this Destiny 2 teaser, I see 2 possible realities, both of which are problematic to me personally. Either:

1) The teaser IS representative of the game (as all teasers should be), in which case I worry that I personally will not enjoy the tone of Destiny 2,

or

2) The teaser doesn't match the tone of the game at all (thus failing one of the most important goals of any teaser)

So either it's a great teaser of a game that doesn't appeal to me personally, or it is a trailer that doesn't actually communicate anything about the tone or mood of the game (which to me would make it a bad teaser). I think scenario number 2 is far more likely which is why I don't think it is a good teaser.

The idea that a teaser is meaningless or doesn't say anything about the full game is simply false.