The Magic of a Good Game Trailer – Prince of Persia

I still remember the time when I was still struggling to fiddle with my 2+ years old PS1 when all of a sudden through random surfing the net I came across the trailer of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. The game I think had just launched and I knew that PS2 is widely available across my neighborhood too. When I saw the trailer for the very first time it literally made me go high with such strong adrenaline rush that that way old feeling is still survived to sustain in me for all these years and I can still start the game from scratch despite of the fact that I rarely repeat a game once when I have finished it. The Godsmack soundtrack – I stand alone being played in the background, the awesome-most art which one could witness at that time of gaming era, the wonderful composites of HD and real-time rendered game play, plus the story which was so intriguing even for a gamer who had no idea of the first installment of the game, was so damn good collectively that I couldn’t sleep for days!

The trailer kept looping in my head again and again and I kept talking to my friends about it who had no idea of what am I talking about. I was so madly in love with the overall feel of the trailer alone that I really couldn’t wait to get my hands on the game. So I kept pushing and asking my dad to please buy me the PS2 now that is the most advance and that it is going to help me in my future studies (as a 3D-Artist). But deep inside I knew that I have found a something to love for so long that I cannot resist it for more days. So finally under a couple of weeks I was able to game my dad for getting me a brand new PS2 and the first game that I plugged it in was POP: Warrior Within only. And the game didn’t disappoint me at all. It matched my expectations quite perfectly and as a gamer I was so overwhelmed by the overall thrill a title alone could provide. This game alone initiated my curiosity for the first installment of POP, also known as Sands of Time.

So what all did a good game trailer accomplished here? I know I am only one of those other million gamers who get motivated to go and buy a game console after seeing something which is as short as under 3 minutes of duration. Here lies the art of making a good trailer. All the factors mentioned before contributes collectively in the marketing and promotion of any good game. And I think I have seen many games go down just because they didn’t have a good video trailer but has a good game play and all the other factors which actually makes a game “fun”.

A good trailer automatically gets shared. People love it and share it with their friends. Word of mouth publicity comes into play and the developer team gets a good response even before the game is launched. The studio hits its target, the sales rise but the gamer will eventually get disappointed if the game fails to score in terms of fun. But that is something totally off-stream of what I really want to put out here. So my plea to all game developing studios out there is to focus on the trailer too if they feel that they have made a game with 50+ artists who have dedicatedly put their hearts and mind into the project and they understand that the success of the project is not only of studio but is of them too. Don’t rush things in the end. Don’t put up a crappy edited walk-through trailers on web. Take your time. Categorize the art direction for a trailer as something of top most priority. Direct and stream it well and make sure those 120+ seconds count as we really don’t want to miss that awesome game you develop next just because you weren’t able to find time to make a good trailer of it.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention how beautiful Kaileena looked with the voice-over of beautiful Monica Bellucci.

Check out the trailer I’m talking about here:

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