How do you get people to comment on a trailer? Thread

Here is my first trailer.

So my team and I worked hard to create a teaser trailer for our game, but it's really challenging getting any kind of attention. It's obviously not as simple as build it and they will come. Do you guys have any advice for me on how I can get people to see and comment on my trailer. I think commentating is really important because i want to engage people who might be interested but have questions about our game.

Thank you for your help.

Audio work was really weak and unbalanced. The music doesn't fit, there are no sound effects and I still don't know what the game is about after watching the trailer. The trailer animation itself is nice, but I have a feeling you could match better the dramaturgy and the sound. You can also break it up by fading/cutting to another screen and describe features of the game (briefly); or a citation from someone who tried it and liked it. It's a good start, but it didn't get me very interested in the game. Perhaps you can show some more gameplay (events) in a future trailer.

To get people to watch it, I'd say send it around to the various gaming sites and ask them to add it. You might want to hold that off for a bit though, until you fixed the current weaknesses.

Edited by: SinKing

Hi SinKing, thanks for your input. I'm the audio director, or composer/sound designer if you prefer. Would you be willing to elaborate on your audio comments?

• What speakers were you listening through, and what is your listening setting? I tested the mix through 5 different speaker types, including 2 sets of headphones, and am concerned I missed something.
• Musical "fit" - could you please elaborate further, noting what genre, style, orchestration, tempo, and key phrases might have better served the picture, or as you put it, the dramaturgy? (This is a good place to explain how you felt the balance and strength of the audio could be improved.) Referencing hardware or software specifics as well as mixing tools or frequency bandwidth gaps would be a great help.
• Did you notice the theme is "Yankee Doodle" in a minor key? What other American Revolutionary War song would you have used for the theme?

Thanks for your time!

DS

1. The Speaker. I can't understand him very well and don't really get what he is raving about or to whom. It seems like a speech, but there is no audience reacting and it's overall not always audible what he says. It sounds like a bad recording, even though it is probably supposed to sound like an old microphone. Also, he's too loud and too young.

2. Image and Sound don't match in any place. If at least there were some gunshots or footsteps or shouts of war or other image related sfx it would alleviate the mix. You have images but don't work with them for the most part.

3. Yankee Doodle? I doubt even a trained musician could make that out. I wouldn't have used an electronic tune at all. I guess you want to give this a dark dystopian theme.

4. There is no real sense of the threat, even though the images hint at terrible things happening. The trailer doesn't climax (not your fault), but it made me waiting for a final boom. It stays on one level of intensity right from the onset of that electronic track.

Imagewise I am missing mainly blood, muzzle flash and other effects. It's a shame to have such nice animation and no particles to support it. If you want to build a sense of danger, make the people bleed, scream and smoke [from their wounds ]. It's obviously not a game targeted at realism, so why not go a bit over the top with things like that? Better than being too timid about it, imho.

Edited by: SinKing

Thanks for elaborating SinKing. You comments have been passed to the team.

The game name makes this trailer incomprehensible.
Is it set in a Dystopian future or is it an alternate past timeline ?
If its a future / alternate reality perhaps you should steampunk your guns or something. if its a history "theme" perhaps remove the modern billboards and lighting systems.
Including a clip of your speaker shouting his speech for just 1 second could give us a sense of games ethos.
Alternately try adapting a special logo specific to this game.
Example EA (something they do right in my opinion) choose to do themed logos for each new game
below is for plants vs zombies.
Plantsvszombies.wikia.com
and now for a modern shooter
S.hhlcdn.com

Some sort of hint graphics/gameplay wise or simply Renaming your game may help you get a better audience.
(im talking of course not about what to include but the removal of the misdirection of the art in outland 17 after 1.05 and at .40 the café sign )

Note you need to turn down the brightness of the irrelevant panels especially in the video / not 100% sure you need to do it in game.(post production lots of free tools to fix this)(while you at it make some of your characters a tiny bit better exposed ..again easy fixed)

The good points , Well coordinated colour temperature palette , Some nice particles within the scene.
Animations look varied and plentiful , detailed textures with good emotional acting .
Very few scaling issues , (yes there are some such as the stairways seem incorrectly scaled)
Your models are so varied it seems as if you have well over 12 characters in this demo although It could be lower.
Also im feeling the city scene vibe and id like to see a few extra scratches and wear in them...maybe even some building destruction ?
Overall decent quality work