If You Have Thirty Seconds...

So, I'm over at the Escapist Magazine website to watch Loading Ready Run.  If you don't know what Loading Ready Run is, I suggest you look it up.  Anyway, the Escapist has these terribly annoying commercials before each of their videos, and one made me pause the video when it actually start, open a new tab, and start typing this.

It was a trailer for the game Dishonored.  I've actually seen this thirty-second spot twice now, and I can honestly say that the only thing I know about this game is that it plays in the first person.  Maybe.  It was a dreadful commercial.  There was a dog, and a robot, and I think a girl died.  At the end of the trailer, it tells me to go somewhere to watch the whole trailer.


At this point, I'm thinking to myself: you had thirty seconds forcibly taken of my time to convince me to buy your game, but instead you made a trailer... for a trailer.

What.  The.  Crap.

Do you know how much information you can rely in thirty seconds?  I do.  I went to school to learn how much information you can fit in to thirty seconds.  Also, have you ever seen a commercial for any kind of medication?  They manage to tell you what the medication is for and ALL the side effects.  In thirty seconds.

So, this got me thinking about kick ass game trailers I've seen that only took thirty seconds.  So, I just looked up one of my favorite franchises in regards to cinematic quality within a video game: Halo.  I just watched the Halo Wars thirty second spot.  Granted, Halo Wars was kind of terrible, but in thirty seconds, they told me what was going on, who was fighting who, and even have an Xbox 360 ad during the last five minutes.  Then I thought of an even greater game series: Mass Effect.  The thirty second spot for Mass Effect (1) was coherent, albeit lacking in actual substance.

What I'm saying is game developers have already made the thirty second spot work for them.  I guess it just bothers me that there is some much creative talent in this world, and yet we are constantly assaulted with garbage.  The Dishonored trailer didn't tell me a damn thing about the game, the world it was in, or even what I would be doing if I played the game.  One of those should be addressed, at least.  And a trailer for a trailer?  Get over yourself.

You have my attention for thirty seconds.  Make it count.  A video game, or any visual media, should attract more than just my eyes.  People want substance and content.  Flash, as Hollywood has proven again and again, is just an eye sore without substance.

Every video is (or should be) a story.  It should be treated as such.  Every story has an introduction, middle, and conclusion.  Take the Halo Wars spot for example.  The introduction was that an enemy took something from the narrator that he was ordered to take back.  The middle of this story is the way the thing (in this case a planet) was taken, and the means that were being used to take it back (in this case violence).  The conclusion is special, because its a teaser.  Teasers always end with a question: how will this end?  In this trailer, we see a bunch of aliens squaring off against a bunch of humans, and the audience has a question: who will win?  By the end of the Dishonored Trailer Trailer, the only question was: what the f*** is this even about?

Objective failed.

Maybe this is an isolated incident.  Maybe if I watched the full trailer, I would see a story.  But, with that as my first look at the game, I don't feel like further look is worth my time.  I will not buy Dishonored.  Every time I see that trailer, I want to buy it less.

If you have thirty seconds, use them.