Show the Actual Game! - Sakurai talks about trailers.

Holammer

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If you are unawares, Masahiro Sakurai got his own YT channel where he talks about various aspects of game design. They are short, snappy & expertly subtitled in English.
In today's video he discusses trailers and his opinion should resonate with everyone.
 
I want to understand the game. I've seen so many trailer where I don't even understand what kind of game it's going to be.
 
These Sakurai videos have been astoundingly on-point in just about every topic they've ever covered. It's probably the best generalized encyclopedia of proper game development that has ever been made. It still blows my mind how many AAA devs ignore so many aspects that seem obvious to people like Sakurai.

Highly recommend binging the entire series of vids.
 
Sakurai…..for love all things good…PLEASE give me Kid Icarus Uprising sequel or at very least bring the first game to Switch…..or Switch 2
 
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An obvious point that allot of developers still miss (Sakurai doesn't really say anything new btw, but he's right, of course).

My theory has been allot of developers feel pressured to get something out there early to stay in the rat race but what they have at that point is usually too embarrassing (relatively) to show off so we get these weak-ass trailers that don't actually show gameplay. The Nintendo way really is the best way though - Total radio silence until you're near ready to release. I just get overloaded with information from everywhere otherwise and usually lose interest from early reveals. The practice seems counterproductive.
 
I love the Monolith Soft does it. They always announce the game when they ready to show something and in Xenoblade 3 not only it didn't get delayed but instead the they push the release date forward.
 
He has you on ignore since you talked shit about his favorite SSB fighter.
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I mean, you can do both you know? Isn't that what he did with the smash trailers anyway?


yeah, The cgi trailer is just a hype generator followed with actual gameplay to show the character off, its actually pretty genius

I still think the best example was banjo and kazooie, start off with a mislead, then tye actual reveal, then show that sweet, sweet sizzle reel while the hype is still flowing
 
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