False Video Game TV Ads?

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VideoGameCritic
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby VideoGameCritic » April 3rd, 2013, 5:21 pm

According to this article Sega is conceding that the television ads for their new Aliens game didn't really reflect how the actual game looks.

I think it's an interesting topic because I have also noticed some ads that really oversell games by showing graphics not representative of what they are going to get.

I think I saw a Dead Space 3 commercial that looked extremely life-like, and I thought, "hey, that's not how it really looks!"

This used to be called false advertising, didn't it?  I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

darkrage61
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby darkrage61 » April 3rd, 2013, 6:18 pm

Not too surprising, it's the same thing with TV spots for movies, sometimes they'll use scenes that are not in the actual film and sometimes they can totally misadvertise a film. I remember back when Primeval(killer crocodile film based on a true story) came out, it was promoted as a serial killer film, which it wasn't, and some critics were surprised.  There was also the trailer for Annapolis, which made it look like a war film, so people were surprised to learn that it was a boxing drama and those scenes of death and destruction shown in the trailer and TV spots were all from different films.

As for Dead Space 3, what type of TV are you using?  Maybe the game really does look that good on certain HDTVs.


michaeld1
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby michaeld1 » April 3rd, 2013, 8:39 pm

On Aliens: Colonial Marines, I'm going to give Sega a bit of a break because of how unclear we now know the run up to the game's release was.  Remember, there's still the questions on what happened with development, why the game looks worse in release form than during development (as some press people were saying it looked visually impressive when it was exhibited at trade shows), how close Sega and Gearbox where during the project, why it still isn't out on Wii U (and why it hasn't yet been cancelled because, trust me; it's not going to come out) and whether Gearbox screwed Sega over with development, the latter of which will most likely result in lawsuits when all is said and done.

In general, though, it is false advertising, but since many of these teasers do seem to represent the actual game in some form or another, there's probably no legal issue.  It's like that Dead Island trailer that people went nuts over; the game itself looks nowhere near as good as that did, but by flaunting the trailer, Deep Silver was able to make the game sell.  It's kind of interesting that the tactic works, especially considering the fallout over the fake trailers of Killzone 2 and Motorstorm from E3 2006, which resulted in many doubting Sony whenever they claimed a PS3 game was actually running on the system's hardware and asking if it's just a cutscene (and the claims that they just slapped some fake indicators on some teasers to games, like the cancelled Eight Days, though I don't know if that was true or not).


Edward1
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby Edward1 » April 4th, 2013, 5:04 pm

I think this trend started long ago, with the PS1.  I remember the commercials for both final fantasy VII and Resident Evil II showing nothing but FMV.  I was about 11 at the time and was amazed.  I thought it was actual game footage.  I never got a chance to play them, because all my friends owned n64s instead of the ps1.  I actually saved up to buy a PS1 because of those two games.  When I bought both of them, I was disappointed when I realized the gameplay was nothing like that.  However, those are still 2 of my favorite games ever made.   All of us here can spot FMV in commercials from a mile away now. However, when I was a kid, I was gullible.  I can see how kids could be fooled now also.

Pacman0001
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby Pacman0001 » April 4th, 2013, 5:24 pm

I can understand why movie trailors sometimes differ from the completed film.  The trailors may be made before the film is completely edited.  As such, the trailor may have scenes that were cut from the completed film. 

I'm not so sure about game trailors.  Ads for older games would use live action or animation along side game footage.  There's nothing wrong with that, but today's games look closer to movies, so a combination of footage can cause confusion.  Ads should probably include a lable, saying that some footage may be enhanced.

ActRaiser1
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby ActRaiser1 » April 5th, 2013, 8:38 am

Yeah, back in the day any clips you'd see on TV would be the pre-rendered cut scenes.  You knew the actual game wouldn't play like that.

Of course, back in the day, you'd have the opening cut scene and then when you finished plowing through the game you'd get the closing scene.  Today, most games have cut scenes rendered in game through out the game.  

I guess expectations change over time.

And definitely agree on the Gearbox fiasco.  They got greedy with their Badlands hit and screwed the pooch with Aliens.  It's not Sega's fault, this one is purely on Gearbox.


darkrage61
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False Video Game TV Ads?

Postby darkrage61 » April 5th, 2013, 12:52 pm

You mean Borderlands LOL

Anyways, I wouldn't say it's entirely Gearbox's fault, at the time were busy working on Borderlands 2 and they couldn't develop both it and Aliens at the same time. So they outsourced Aliens to Timegate, and when Gearbox took a look at the game, they found that most if not all of Timegate's work was very sloppy and unpolished(though Timegate said the same thing about Gearbox's work), so once Sega set the release date, they basically had to work overtime to fix as much as they could in time, both companies essentially put in about the same amount of work on the game.  The studios simply did not get along well with one another and it's unfortunate that their disagreements ended causing the game to come out like it did.



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