From Reveal to Release - Scott The Woz

hey all Scott here I haven't checked on my birth certificate since last September yeah I'm really falling behind so let's see what it has in store for us so my name was just a placeholder until they thought of something better and they never did nothing like an existential crisis to start your day playing a video game whatever learning about its existence now I could do that all day I love when new video games are revealed telling everybody what the hell you're working on it's an art and the way companies reveal their video game can be vital to its immediate success or failure the build-up to the release of a game can sometimes be more memorable than the final product just because there's a certain magic to it all not knowing everything there is about a game and being surprised when they showcase something you weren't expecting in the reveal trailer is satisfying and exciting beyond words of course reveals can go haywire now I don't think it's deliberate I doubt marketing folks are in their board meetings going alright guys just finalize that review plan for the game first we go but it happens all the time for every Twilight Princess reveal there's a Randy Pitchford doing magic tricks install the reveal of Borderlands 3 for every Final Fantasy 7 remake trailer there's a Diablo mobile game revealed when everybody wanted a true main line entry for every baby born there's a peggle 2 a showmanship is important with video game reveal as these days they need to have an amazing CGI trailer with great gameplay shown alongside it with epic music playing over at all bonus points of its broadcasted live on stage with audience reactions and they also need to be anything but this but the quality and impact of a video game reveal only truly started to become important in the age of the internet back in the 80s and 90s you just flip through a Nintendo Power waiting to scream pack watch this section was dedicated to revealing what's coming soon and that was the primary way of learning about new video games outside of TV commercials or just walking in the store now with the internet this ensures more people are exposed to your game and word of mouth spreads much more quickly and easily but you gotta make sure your game is worth talking about you gotta ask is this a thing people will not shut up about on social media it was much simpler back then because he couldn't go completely crazy with revealing your video game you can only really throw a couple of paragraphs and screenshots in a magazine and that was probably maybe less expensive and stressful than putting together a three-minute long CGI trailer including good-looking and fun gameplay on a stage you have to run out but video games were becoming more than just some toy for kids to fiddle around with and because of that they were deserving of a little more flair and possessed than just ink words one of the first big introductions of a game was Super Mario Brothers 3 they basically made an entire movie just to reveal this game in North America alright The Wizard it's fine it's not good it's not terrible it was supposed to come off as a heartwarming movie about a little boy named Jimmy with PTSD who becomes an amazing video game player but it was just a 100 minute long Nintendo commercial with footage of Mario 3 at the end man the kid has had a warp whistle that was the only reason why people wanted to see it back then and the only reason why people may want to watch it now but this was kind of the starting point for large-scale video game reveals as games became much more of a production and became more and more appropriate to put everybody in a stupid [ __ ] tent to show a last of his 2 trailer damnit but just because of a bombastic lead-up to release it doesn't say anything about the final product sometimes a bad reveal turns out to be a good game and a good reveal turns out to be a bad one either way you want to make sure your reveal falls in line with expectations of a game leading up to launch or else people won't pick it up because they think it's gonna be bad or they'll be disappointed because it failed to live up to expectations the adventure of video game goes through from reveal to release is always interesting except with tetris 99 that thing just kind of came out so let's talk about each step of the build-up to a release and historic successes failures and how each step affects the final product everything generally starts with the reveal sure you get some teases from developers confirmation a game is in development or stupid dumb stupid leaks but the grand reveal the first time they formally unveil their product is the main starting point sometimes reviews can go well and other times they can be Skyward Sword I have war flashbacks that the Zelda Skyward Sword demo at e3 2010 and now technically we knew an original Zelda game was being created for the week before this a new Zelda was confirmed in 2008 and concept art was shown off the next year but 2010 was the first time we saw Skyward Sword not working in the flesh yeah when you're using wireless controllers to demo a game still in development that's heavily dependent on motion controls yes something like this is bound to happen I will say a lot of the elements of the reveal outside of the technical issues were well done Miyamoto appeared on screen and then with summoned on stage I like that and the quick teaser they showed beforehand was awesome they show off elements of the previous 3d Zelda games until it shows off this game's new art style seat technical issues can transform a game's fun announcement into off that's a sacrifice you have to be willing to make by doing everything live on stage this makes to reveal much more impactful but just can some video online without any warning I mean that works too and there's far less that can go wrong definitely less of a risk but less showmanship with this route now I'm confident saying if the demo didn't go haywire this would have been up there is one of the best e3 reveals instead it's one of the most notorious how about reveals that don't tell you anything about the game at all like at all so you have this loading screen in the sky that turns into a flame ball flying around in the now it's contra they're coming this was at e3 2011 and eight years later oh man this K must be something else if it's taking this long then no this was the most generic way you could announce a game and the only thing that made the scream contra was the contra logo so not only did that game never come out but there was nothing to discern from this trailer but what about trailers that have everything to discern from but aren't really the game at all Killzone 2 that was faked this was shown in 2005 to hype up the ps3 it was made to look like it was actual gameplay it wasn't like a cinematic CGI trailer it was more so a CGI gameplay trailer some people looked at this back then and assumed this was real-life gameplay oh how far we've come to be fair we can finally achieve graphics like this now problem was this was shown 14 years ago and can be labeled as my favorite pastime false advertising that's a major issue when trailers are misleading and that's one of the biggest problems with game trailers many primarily use CGI or builds of the game they look and run much better than the final versions to swoon over consumers well you that Dead Island reveal is one of the best trailers ever but isn't the most indicative of what you get with the final package and then when it's time to actually release some game some developers realize oh wow we were lying they have to end up heavily downgrading the game to release it before their deadline or for it to work smoothly on consoles watchdogs is an example everybody likes to jump to how the initial reveal and demos of the game painted it in a much better light when it was revealed to d3 2012 people were impressed and expressed that they wouldn't like the game if that release it looked a bit different and slightly downgraded compared to the reveal Ubisoft - you swine I feel like people were a bit too harsh on watchdogs it isn't a bad game and it still looks pretty decent today it's just with a bunch of bugs and glitches at launch and with it being touted as a true next-gen experience even though they released it on last gen machines as well it still disappointed people who are expecting it to be a much more mind-blowing experience when in reality it was a pretty typical Ubisoft game I mean now I'll think twice before booking Ubisoft to cater a grad party their stuff when advertised doesn't always equal their final product the watchdog's got a lot of heat for its amazing reveal and ho-hum release and I don't think it was completely justified one thing I noticed and not enough people give watchdogs credit for is that it has a finalized title bad reveals aren't limited to games consoles kit them - I'm sure you've heard of the third console curse at this point where a company's third system is a complete disaster the PlayStation 3 the Sega Saturn but the Xbox one is the best example of this in the past decade now you may say the Wii U's reveal was significantly worse and that is debatable but you may also say wait the Wii U was a Nintendo's third console and you're right it was their second third console but with the Wii U that systems reveal didn't anger people it just confused them the Xbox one now this console was revealed in May of 2013 and it was filled with Skype on my TV TV on my TV using Kinect with my TV and Call of Duty ghosts damn what a gaming platform this reveal was incredibly tone-deaf and was aimed at casual consumers who didn't care about tuning into a live stream revealing the next Xbox to the audience who actually cared enough to watch an Xbox reveal event this announcement was boring and uninteresting to almost every viewer and not only that but more news came out afterwards about how the console wooden support used games would require an internet connection periodically it required Kinect this reveal alone confirmed Microsoft's place in anywhere but first in the console wars this generation that's the major reason why the ps4 is in a test in first place compared to the Xbox one with the Wii U I mean this review was so confusing Nintendo decided to re-review the Wii U at the following e3 that didn't help things but at least this revealed didn't cause anger they just didn't show the console I mean they kind of did but it was blurry in the distance every time I was on screen they focus so much on the controller that people assume that's all the way you was a controller for the week Gumble that with underwhelming games and the Wii U yeah I'd say that was a fairly bad reveal in terms of more modern stuff fallout 76 yeah they built up to a formal reveal trailer of the game where it looked like pretty much another Bethesda fallout people were excited and then rumors floated around about it being online only and Todd Howard went up on stage at e3 2018 set a few swear words and charmed everybody into realizing by the end of it all I still didn't know what the hell fallout 76 was consider that a botched reveal I mean that's like if Nintendo put out a CG a mario kart trailer you'd say oh it's a Mario Kart game and then the game comes out and it's an overhead racing game like they specifically real people in who wanted a traditional Fallout game by not making it clear at all what the hell the game was and it's reveal making it seem as if it's a traditional Fallout game they also revealed two new games in the works after talking about fallout 76 star filled in elder scrolls 6 no gameplay shown just crazy short animated teasers with logos now starfield i'mokay was saying that was a bad reveal that's a brand new IP so showing space and then a logo means nothing to me at least the contra game from 2011 I mean I know what contra is it's fairly understandable to do teaser like this for a pre-existing franchise just saying that a new entry is in the works is enough sometimes but star feel man that's a new game just showing a logo is stupid in my opinion it means nothing to me now disappointment is one thing you really want to ensure doesn't happen during a reveal but it's really hard when fans expect or one one thing and Nintendo does this instead 2015 to 2016 was a bad era for Nintendo reveals as they kept doing the unthinkable and made bad games and announcements upset games Animal Crossing amiibo festival picture this everybody wants a new Animal Crossing game for the Wii U at e3 2015 this appears on screen Wow Animal Crossing amiibo being scanned on the Wii U that must mean nevermind like come on you put these two things on screen and you don't expect people to think you're about to reveal a real Animal Crossing game for Wii U instead an Animal Crossing party game is revealed and not just any Animal Crossing party game a bad one Metroid Prime Federation force fell victim to being revealed at one of the worst times for Metroid fans they reveal a game called blast ball during the Nintendo World Championships 2015 and then reveal that game to be a part of a new Metroid Prime spin-off a couple days later during their e3 presentation so that just sort of proves that this Metroid Prime game is generic-looking enough to be shown off as anything but a Metroid Prime game and on top of that the first Metroid we get after five years in the first Metroid Prime in eight years is a spin-off on the 3ds yes the best place for a multiplayer first-person shooter now recently we have gotten the sheer beauty of valve announcing artifact after not making a major title in years you know something people really wonder from valve they just barf out some card game based on dota 2 and it caught a reaction alright this wasn't what people wanted from valve especially because this wasn't a game in the same field that stuff like portal half-life left4dead this was a cash grab it's almost like they planned such a negative reaction all these mysterious visuals and then blam a logo with the doted card games slowly fading in under it a similar story with Diablo immortal a fans wanted a new Diablo Blizzard said we cut a new Diablo for you alright phone Diablo it's the next best thing next to having a finalized title remember when they revealed Pokemon Sun and Moon for the first time yeah that's one they didn't reveal Pokemon Sun and Moon and this live presentation that was seven minutes long just to show off a retrospective trailer of Pokemon throughout the years and then they just smacked some Sun and Moon logos on the screen which were leaked beforehand classical leox happening right before reveal and ruining the surprise in the entire context of the reveal trailer yeah those are the best now a bad reveal doesn't always mean a bad game comes out of it a one way core famously got a ton of criticism when it was initially announced people wanted a more realistic darker Zelda something in line with a next-gen Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask and this tech demo Nintendo showed off for the Gamecube instead we got fun colors and shapes and people weren't happy but it turned out to be an amazing game the original Metroid Prime initially had a similar reaction people were concerned when they first saw it at space world 2000 but it changed significantly by its release and became one of the greatest games of all time look at that now in terms of good reveals I think the best kinds of introductions to video games are surprising exciting and self-aware now what do I mean by self-aware what I mean by that is I love when you can see how the developer knows what they have they know what fans want they know exactly how to unveil that product easy example is Smash Brothers Ultimates roster reveal at e3 2018 they start off with these standard characters you'd expect to see but then they get a little Wilder sonic continue to revealed right from the start alright ice climbers are back alright everybody expected that good for them pokemon trainer back after being cut from smash 30s and Wii U I didn't expect that the DLC newcomers from Smash 30s and Wii U as well yeah they're here - oh Jesus Christ Nick from brawl everybody is here what does that mean can Pichu they knew the exact order to reveal each character and they knew snake would garner a huge reaction and then they followed up by confirming Pichu the character that really made everybody realize oh really bring back everybody happy wolf was one of the final characters revealed in this trailer because he was one of the most requested DLC characters in smash through the yes and we you and hey speaking of Smash Brothers for 3ds and WiiU that had some of the best trailers in the field especially the reveal it does the whole fake out introduction with Animal Crossing cuts to all the major franchises crossing over in the 3ds gameplay ho damn Wii U visuals now villager the names Megaman now some people may say the broad trailer was better than this and that's totally fair I love how it starts off with the melee visuals and then everybody transforms into their much grittier grocer brawl models tons of newcomers revealed ending off with snake from Metal Gear joining just think if snake can be in Smash Brothers you can do anything but before this we had melees reveal where you can just hear how excited the audience was they pretty much just played the opening movie and seeing all these characters and beautiful CG and then in game graphics that weren't too much worse made for an incredible review this was the GameCube debut for a lot of these characters so to see them all in such an amazing crossover fighter with silky smooth visuals for the first time must have been mind-blowing I wasn't there but God knows if they reveal super smash brothers melee for the first time again anytime soon I will be just because winwaker was initially met with a negative reception doesn't mean although the games for Hakata no obviously one of the greatest reveals of all time was Twilight Princess at e3 2004 keep in mind this was a few years after the winwaker debacle so because of that game's initial criticism that made this reveal that much more impactful just as the press conference was wrapping up a new trailer starts playing with Conan the Barbarian music the same music that played in an ocarina of time trailer as the music starts building up link comes in whipping out his sword gameplay as shown confirming met intend to listen Miyamoto appears on stage with a sword and shield I mean you can't get much crazier than man this is easily the wildest a crowd has ever gone with a video game reveal hit alone a Nintendo one but you know I really liked how breath of the wild was her field not nearly as epic but agian image is proudly showing how the game will look and showing a scene of Link fleeing from a guardian gave you enough of a taste just him snapping his fingers to reveal what an open world HD Zelda game would look like made my jaw drop of course who the hell knew what this was all about at the time we really didn't have any context and a bunch of people thought link was a girl 2015 yeah can't wait for that now when the PlayStation 4 was officially announced Tony hold this conference where they spent a solid four years describing everything they could about the console without actually showing the console but one thing I will always remember with this reveal was the introduction they started things off with a video with this intense music Sony didn't officially say they were revealing the ps4 at this thing they just said they were discussing the future of PlayStation which we all knew this was going to be the PlayStation 4 but this right here when they go P s and then it cuts up before the number plays this retrospective video about PlayStation I always really liked that moment and I never see anybody talking about it what a good reveal doesn't always mean a good game comes out of it that trade other m was revealed at e3 2009 and it was an incredible way to end a pretty mediocre show this was casuals corner Women's Murder Club games of passion had a trailer featured at the conference huh what why but then Nintendo kind of threw this and Super Mario Galaxy 2 at the very end like they were throwing a bone to their core fans and Metroid Other M looked amazing especially with it being me trailer to end the show now I personally stand by the fact that other m isn't that bad most of the badness comes from the story and characters and the gameplay is pretty decent but this game is a prime example of good reveal turned sour by the game's final release I'd say some of the most satisfying reveals are definitely those of games that have been requested at for ever the Final Fantasy 7 remake Kingdom Hearts 3 Killer Instinct Shenmue 3 and then it's sunken to me that they were just announcing the Kickstarter for the game not the actual game at Sony's conference that was sort of bogus as much as I complained about the Last of Us to his 10th and banjo trailer the initial in vail was a phenomenal introduction to part two one of those things where we were all like you had this is Last of Us yeah this is Last of Us this is Last of Us even with the games released far off from when and initially debuted the gave you so much to work off of this told you so much yet not a lot at the same time okay I hate this little factoid about myself but I kind of liked the halo reveal trailers ever since halo 4 like yeah 343 industries is that a sloppy record with Halo but I like these trailers for their element of surprise like oh man who knows what this is and blam Master Chief is here I like that because it always gives these trailers a sense of oh the stupidest one though is the halo 5 teaser I mean this was basically just the confirmed halo was gonna be on Xbox one and this scene was never in Halo 5 and why does Master Chief need a cloak he has armor because they wanted the big reveal that oh it's halo they're pretty cheap reveals but they always lead to fun reactions and of course there are the reveals that our responses to recent events I'm mainly looking at deaths stranding and mighty number 9 these games were revealed after Hideo Kojima and Keiji Inafune a had pretty sour split ups from the respective companies and when they revealed their first games on their own people went insane for death stranding and people went insane for the mighty number 9 Kickstarter and then justifiably went insane after it was released well those are just some historic reveals in gaming but what about the stuff that happens afterwards sometimes it's nothing special a few trailers here and there and then boom release but Oh sometimes you get the best trailer of them all randomly thrown in there after the reveal one of my favorite trailers of all time is the breath of the wild trailer during the Nintendo switch presentation 2017 and that had some of the greatest music and editing ever to graze a video game trailer everything was so epic and emotional it was perfect we get a title change sometimes maybe they revealed the game with a working title and logo with an intern screaming hey man without that times new roman' fun we got a logo to make sometimes the entire identity of a game changes during this phase shouldn't Megami Tensei crossfire emblem was revealed for the Wii U in 2013 and didn't appear again until 2015 where it became not bad Tokyo Mirage sessions sharp F II pretty much an original game with elements from SMT and Fire Emblem thrown in there yes exactly what I was expecting from this teaser Conker's Bad Fur Day famously debuted as conkers quest a typical family-friendly platformer until it became this mature deformity Metal Gear Solid 5 wasn't announced as Metal Gear Solid 5 hideo kojima was pulling a funny on us all and announced the phantom pain as an original game and then later revealed whoops who was actually Metal Gear Solid 5 a lot can change for better or for worse and many times new little tidbits about the product or revealed that make things a little less appealing I pray for anybody that experiences anything like the shame Sony experience when they announce the Vita would be using 18 T for the 3G model and will be partnering with AT&T as the exclusive carrier for PlayStation Vita in United States first impressions are crucial but even if they're stifled a bit a trailer in the middle of the build-up can totally change public opinion Super Mario 3d World was much more well-received once the second trailer came out and blood-stained changed up its art style for the best after a lukewarm reception changes are made all the time up until release the Xbox one backtracked on many of the features people felt less than stellar about Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 got a new art style for some reason a month before release and one that released they finally hits it can be either the most magical thing ever or absolutely shrouded in disappointment it's interesting to see how much reception may change from the initial reveal a lot of the time we can all kind of tell if a game is gonna stink a little bit I understand you have to wait until the game is finished and you've played it to fully form an opinion but we all kind of knew that day's gun was gonna be pretty whatever crackdown 3 wasn't gonna be all too hot and mighty number 9 a lot of us have become well-versed in the general marketing language of companies and when little is said about a product before release that's probably not good you can see trouble brewing from a mile away but to be proven wrong or to get exactly what you wanted is always a joy the build-up is important because they have to know exactly when to release more information when talk is dying down here's a new trailer the reveal and build up needs to be timed well exciting and not tone-deaf and for some games that's difficult for numerous reasons the marketing people may not get the target demographic they may not get what fans truly want to see from trailers which is why it's so special to see smash brothers reveals that poke fun and things really only fans get to see Twilight Princess get revealed after winwaker to have the ps4 be revealed to play used games after the Xbox one was initially confirmed not to to see Death Strand and get revealed after Kojima left Konami to see gameplay of it it's everything I wanted is one of the most memorable experiences to have as a fan for better or for worse waiting for new information counting the days to the release getting a final name holy SH okay I'm a mess my name's Benin we'll figure it out later limbo ever since I was born I don't know how to deal with this I've been going off with a [ __ ] rocker and just to show you how insane I've been lately I ate here [Music]

Channel: Scott The Woz

Views: 2,250,878

Rating: 4.9536633 out of 5

Keywords: best video game reveals, video game audience reactions, worst video game reveals, xbox one, E3 2019, E3 2018, E3 reveal, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, PS4, PS3, video game trailers, best video game trailers, worst video game trailers, announcements

Id: Ttqdx0H4r7A

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 09 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/DaRedGuy]

I remember when insomniac's Overstrike was announced, it was basically a colourful parody of Mission Impossible with the personality of TF2 and humour and weapons of the Ratchet & Clank games.

Then EA brought in 12 year olds to product test it and it basically became a every generic shooter out at the time.

I wouldn't be surprised if said 12 year olds are now playing Overwatch as adults.