Battlefield 3 Dev: 'CGI Trailers Misleading'

NowGamer: Battlefield 3 developer Dice has spoken to NowGamer about its recently-released Battlefield 3 gameplay trailer. Patrick Bach, executive producer on Battlefield 3, spoke about the use of pre-rendered, CGI trailers to promote video games, as with the recent Dead Island trailer. He said, "If you cannot market your game with your game you have a problem."

[theonlylolking]

I agree with Dice. Which is why I am not looking forward to dead island because they did not bother to show in game trailer. They could have done that same trailer with the in game graphics but decided not to.

[Christopher]

I'd say the same for multiplatform games that sell the PC graphical version in trailers knowing their biggest audience is on the consoles.

In all games, though, you tend to wait for the two months before release when you really get to see what a game will look like.

As far as Dead Island, I'm not sure how it's bad when the intention isn't to sell the gameplay but to get people talking about Dead Island. Especially for a new IP from a practically unheard of dev team.

[nveenio]

I agree. Showing PC footage (or even just footage from a single platform) when a vast section of the intended audience will be getting something that is...for lack of a better word...inferior... well, that's more than misleading. It is intentionally deceptive. And it's happened to both consoles. Devs can do whatever they want with a trailer, but they really should at least show off each platform in other ways. If they can't, then that's a bigger problem than a simple CGI trailer.

[SuperM]

Knowing their biggest audience is on consoles? A game might or might not sell better on consoles much dependent on what type of game it is and if its constructed for console and ported to PC or as in Battlefield 3's case, constructed for the PC and ported to the consoles. There is nothing wrong at all with showing the PC version of your product unless you pretend its the console version.

And i really hope you are not trying to take a stab at Battlefield 3 for showing the PC version, because its the sequel to Battlefield 2 which aside from a crappy console port was a PC game. This is the game PC gamers have been waiting for for a long time. I own most of my games for PS3 but this one i will definately get for the PC, and ill get a new rig with it.

[awi5951]

Yeah and steam sales arent even counted i buy all my games on steam. Because after years and years you loose disks or cd keys and now you cant play your games. Games like half life one and 2 years later and i can download and play it no prob. But steam really sucked when it started.

[NiKK_419]

yea did you guys see the E3 trailer for star wars the old republic? it looks completely different from the game. the trailer was obviously cgi, but it was way over the top, when the actual game looks like shit, but i guess it would be ok because it's an mmo, but still, completely misleading. my dad was over when i was watching E3, and he was surprised at the graphics lol, so i had to tell him it was fake, he wasn't sure at first

btw, i was mad for a second, because i though it was CGI trailer misleading, meaning that the BF3 trailer was actually cgi, which made me mad lol, but it's cgi trailer"s" misleading

[ATiElite]

FINALLY someone has the BALLS to tell it like it is. Sure I love CGI trailers as they show some creativity but at the end of the day i wanna see exactly what I will be playing.

SW:TOR had an amazing trailer but the game looks like Lego SW. Dead Island will not look like that nice cgi trailer, Homefront is not that sharp as the commercials either with only KZ2 living up to the hype of a CGI trailer, props to GG.

So for now on make your trailers using in game footage of actual game play cause if you don't then we already know your game is WEAK!!

[crzyjackbauer]

thats a slap in the face to Guerrilla games isnt it?

[theonlylolking]

No, since GG lived up to the CGi.

[crzyjackbauer]

@theonlylolking
yeah if your half blind and have Sh1t in your eyes

edit: you dont need to bee blind to see all the crappy and blurry textures from KZ2 just aim and you can see your gun see all the crappy pixels and textures on the red dot sights

[Burning_Finger]

They should put a label "IN GAME FOOTAGE" or something on the trailers...

[LightofDarkness]

They have to for TV adverts, it will say "Footage (Not) Representative Of Actual Gameplay" or something like that. There are no rules like that for internet videos.

[Corrwin]

He then went on to say that the sky is blue, that it takes two to tango.

[chainer3000]

still a decent article in a pool of crap

[Xfanboy]

1: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

2: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

3: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

& tf2!!

[ian72]

I have seen that Red Orchestra2 video before and it looks fantastic. They have put a lot of work into that game to make it as realistic as possible.

[ATiElite]

Battlefield 3 PC check
Red Orchestra 2 PC check
Team Fortress 2 PC check
Arma II PC check
Crysis 2 PC........well OK for the Free Benchmark

[Active Reload]

Now its a problem? I'm joking, but seriously, I didn't mind the Dead Island trailer, it is a new franchise afterall. Besides, no one was upset when Bioshock did it, before or after. Who knows if those weren't the assets from Dead Island making up that trailer? I agree with DICE also, but I would prefer to see a hybrid trailer, not full on CGI stuff. And for the record I would rather have CGI trailers with the game being able to come close or surpass that look as opposed to live action trailers and the game doesn't come anywhere close to looking like that<----you know who you are, lol.

[ps3bestever]

O RLY ?! O_O

[kudakadere]

i think the main problem is that if your game is 50% complete and you show that to people as a trailer to market your game some people may be put off by it as they may think it's representative of the full game.

[LunaticBrandon]

A trailer that can be confused as CGI is misleading.

[AzaziL]

CGI that can be confused as gameplay is even more misleading.

[PS3BURN]

Dead Island trailer is the best piece of CGI I've seen in a long time. So what if it's used to promote a game? CGI and videogames are friends remember? The makers aren't trying to fool people into believing it's actual gameplay, so what's the problem here. Square Enix should better watch out: Everything has to be ingame now...

LAME!

[OhReginald]

as much as i hate CGI trailers....its almost as bad as adverting the PC version first and not the console versions first.

im looking at you EA...

[GSpartan777]

<_< It's suppose to be misleading. That's the attention grabber of this whole trailer. At the end of the days DICe has not made any claims that it's actual gameplay footage either.

[blackhammer]

I don't really know what this guy is saying. Misleading? As in I will think the game will be great? I thought that was what trailers were for whether or not they include gameplay? Will it have a good story? Awesome.

Shut up, DICE. You didn't share anything on the SP story in your trailer except for a bit of the setting.

[aGameDeveloper]

I have a real problem with a company burying a couple seconds of carefully-chosen in-game footage in a massive CGI trailer...

[ChronoJoe]

Yeah but it's toooootally cool to market the PS3, XBOX and PC versions all with PC footage.