My Disdain Towards Video Game Trailers

In 2011, no video game trailer made more waves or garnered as much attention as the Dead Island announcement trailer. As far as video game trailers go, this haunting and beautiful piece is one of the best video game trailers ever made. Thanks to this trailer, the game built up a tremendous amount of pre-release buzz and ultimately sold really well.

Say what you will about the quality of the trailer, but the Dead Island announcement trailer captures a lot of what I hate about video game marketing and advertising. I’ll take this a step even further and say that due to the business practices behind the creation of most video game trailers and commercials, I actively avoid watching them.

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Unhappily Ever After

The other night, i could sense that I was close to beating Borderlands. When I get that feeling, I can’t stop and leave that game until I beat it. In spite of the game’s flaws, I was having a ton of fun with the game. However, Borderlands suffers from a problem that has plagued video games since games were designed with a clear progression from beginning to end: a crappy endgame experience. I ended my Borderlands experience with a bad taste in my mouth, feeling like the extra time I could have dedicated to sleep that evening were wasted on a poor endgame experience.

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