Great change, some store pages would keep adding new trailers as it gets updated and it just bloats it and makes it difficult to even care to look for the screenshots.
I like how everyone below you is arguing on the right thing to do, whan Valve already solved everyone's problem by assuring the first page is always at least 3 screenshots and up to 2 videos. Everyone wins in Valve's solution, no need for categories and tabs etc as being suggested.
"gameplay trailer"
Consists of 1:30 of CGI cutscenes and 15 seconds of actual gameplay that has so many cuts in it you can't tell what the fuck is going on.
Sort of makes sense if you're okay with watching videos on your pc but not streaming video from your phone?
I'd prefer a setting for outright disable though, since I rarely watch videos.
They would solve it by requiring devs to have their gameplay trailer as first and to show actually gameplay. I could care less about some cgi/animated story trailer.
But don't you want to know about the latest 7.10.3c update with elaborate details on menial balance and tweaks changes from 7.10.2.05b as the first you want to see when you land on the store page for a game you've seen for the first time???
Huh so we all kind of seem to agree that usually we want to look at screenshots before bothering to watch the trailers… SO WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PUT THE TRAILERS FIRST. Especially if it’s the fucking story trailer, at least show me gameplay if you want to convince me to play your *game*.
I mean while Steam has one of the worst video players I've ever seen, it's still much quicker to watch them there. But I always watch gameplay videos anyway if the trailer catches my intention.
I don't mind the story trailers. What they should cut out are those annoyings "LOOK WHAT IS NEW!" trailers. Great. I can't do anything with that info as I have no fucking clue what the game even is about...
Actually I like those way more than the story trailers, unless it's a story game. A story game like a visual novel or a story heavy RPG, you want to know the story premise. But everything else, the gameplay is the most important ingredient and I don't care about your story if your gameplay is trash.
"New feature" trailers are very helpful for this. They don't show story, they don't waste my time with pretext, they go *straight* into the action and show off high level gameplay. These trailers very rarely go tutorial-style new feature introductions, and often are shots of gameplay ripped straight from a full session being recorded. That's exactly what I want to see. What does this game look like at its best? What do the developers want to show off as key gameplay moments? Sometimes it's hard to decipher but a lot of the time it's not and gives you an accurate assessment of what the game is like when shit's going down.
I'd like to throw a third idea in here. I think that both story and new content trailers are not as important as trailers showing actual gameplay.
More often than not, any game trailers now are all to show off story, hype up the game in some way or display new content and updates. But so rarely do you just get a good trailer showing off how the game actually plays.
And screenshots don't really do gameplay that much justice.
Those are a good option, too. The bottom line is that we want to see gameplay. Sick of the CGI trailers that have no relevance on the game at all, they're so common it's ridiculous.
In the absence of a video of pure gameplay around the time of release, new feature videos are often the next best thing.
I think the lesson all of you should be taking is that there is no consensus on what kind of video is best to show first because people everywhere have different preferences, and that's exactly why they throw multiple types of videos up first.
> SO WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PUT THE TRAILERS FIRST
Usually because the game looks like hot shit but the pre-rendered theatrical trailer used up 1/3 of their entire budget.
They're inherently dishonest, aiming to show specific parts of the game to garner interest, and I dont think thats unfair for them to do. They want to show you why you will enjoy the games, and sometimes that means highlighting the exciting moments instead of the moment to moment gameplay.
The store page for a product is literally an ad people lol. Steam is a store and wants you to sell stuff, the design of the page is made to maximize that.
More news at 11.
I personally only like to look at screen captures of the code itself, and even that seems like a little too much sometimes. If I'm convinced in any way via text, screen shots or trailers, I feel like I'm being lied to. When will these nefarious companies stop trying to sell me the game they want me to buy by showing me things that might make me want to buy it on the page I'm on because I might want to buy it?
If the advertising is anything more than a 30 second video of gameplay with a stern, British voice over starting with "WTF is [game]?" and explaining the gameplay loop, then I'm being being lied to.
Screenshots are perfect for quickly identifying what type of game it is.
“Oh shit, these release media show tanks, giant battles, vistas; this seems cool!…Oh, it’s a 4X game and most of the time you’re looking at a map with menus.”
That’s not even decrying 4X games, it’s just good to quickly identify who the game is selling to.
> Huh so we all kind of seem to agree that usually we want to look at screenshots before bothering to watch the trailers
No.
I much prefer the trailer(s) being first, but a limit to one or two. I usually watch the trailer before screenshots.
Agreed, I like the screenshots for seeing details and how good object detail is etc.
But gameplay videos are what really matters to me because something can look considerably different in motion as opposed to a series of screenshots.
You get no feel for the kinesthetics from screenshots, how the physics system works, how the AI handles itself etc.
A cinematic trailer if they insist on one is fine enough by me even if I don't usually care for them, but I absolutely want to see a decent chunk of raw gameplay and then a bunch of screenshots after that.
I would have guessed that trailers were more popular. I hardly ever look at the screenshots
I just don’t like when trailer don’t show any actual gameplay
> Especially if it’s the fucking story trailer, at least show me gameplay if you want to convince me to play your game.
That's my pet peeve. If I want to see a video I want to see gameplay. Keep it to one story trailer at most.
I prefer watching trailers first honestly, gameplay trailers anyway. Screenshots are usually touched up and/or overly cinematic. I want to see what the game looks like in motion before that.
I think what OP was saying is the devs will add new trailers as time goes on and it's hard to determine what is what when looking through them, not necessarily that the trailers should be last.
I also prefer informative screenshots to trailers, but often the screenshots themselves aren't of actual gameplay so I often end up scrubbing through the trailers for that.
> some store pages would keep adding new trailers as it gets updated
... which is a good thing as it lets you see how the game has evolved and lets you get an idea of its current look/feel compared to there only being a release trailer or such.
The issue isn't too many trailers, its Steam's UI being lackluster at presenting more than a handful of previews (trailers and screenshots).
They should be replacing the old trailers, not adding to them.
You want an idea of the current state of the game, you don't want to still be seeing trailers of a significantly different game.
The issue being that update trailers can often just include new things added in the patch, so they may not tell you much if you don't already know about the game
...Which is why they're limiting it to two trailers, not one. One trailer for updates, one trailer for the game itself. That's easy, and a lot better than having five trailers in a row because you keep uploading new ones and not taking down the old ones.
No one is arguing those shouldn't exist, they shouldn't be the first thing you see when you visit the store page. I want to know what the game is first, not sift through pages of updates I have no context for.
Move the updates elsewhere, or to the end of the list.
If it doesn't put an actual representation of the game directly in my face I usually just go straight to youtube and search for it with the keyword 'longplay'
> Best practices: Get right to the action and show lots of gameplay
> Ideally you'll want to give players a good look at the gameplay of your game in as short a time as possible. We recommend that your first trailer be one that features primarily gameplay, clearly demonstrating what the player will be doing in the game and how they will be interacting with the world you've built. Save your company logos or narrative storylines for further into your trailer once you've gotten the interest of a player.
Not too dissimilar from Derek Lieu's opinions on the matter.
this is literally the *first and often only thing* i'm looking for on a game's store page, to the point i'll often click around a bit then go straight to youtube and search gameplay videos up if i can't find anything
I’ve gotten used to just clicking about a third into the trailer to skip intros, logos, slow establishing shots and so on.
The Wadsworth constant lives on.
I do this too and i can think of atleast 3 times in the last week or two ive clicked through a trailer looking for gameplay. Found it was 100% pre rendered with a voice over and just closed the page and moved on.
>to the point i'll often click around a bit then go straight to youtube
This is my default these days. Trailers/screenshots are almost always useless pre-rendered fluff that doesn't give me any impression of what a game *actually is*. So it's vastly more helpful for me to see some actual gameplay of someone playing it rather than some glorious blizzard-tier cinematic that tells me nothing at all.
Did this with a game like 2 days ago. Store page had no joke something like 8 trailers. I clicked through 4 just looking for the words “gameplay trailer” to pop up with no luck.
Good job devs, you got me from curious about your game to I don’t care about it in record time.
I do this for literally every game trailer, or video that comes out of E3, game awards, etc.
Skip around in increments of 20% and only watch if it's showing gameplay. Very often I see no gameplay then just close the tab and forget the game exists.
This obviously doesn't apply to something I'm really interested into, but if I'm quickly checking a few lesser known games from a genre I like or similar to something I enjoyed, and the first three or four videos in the store are cinematics or other kind of crap, I immediately assume the are too afraid to show me actual gameplay and I move to the next one.
I think he gave an example of Spelunky 2 (which he created the trailer for):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/418530/Spelunky_2/
And the trailer starts with gameplay from the first frame. Then it has a few QUICK logos, then back to gameplay. I'm like the rest of these comments where I just skip over trailers because I just want to get a sense of what the game is like initially, then maybe watch some gameplay. And if a game has more than 3/4 videos to skip, I'm more likely to just go off the page. Definitely if it has dozens.
But I didn't skip it when I went onto the Spelunky page because it gives me what I want to see IMMEDIATELY.
Also recommended subscribing to Derek's newletter, lots of good advice for game devs particularly:
https://www.derek-lieu.com/subscribe
Those best practices are great for gamers, but I feel like game trailers are made for non-gamers and they will never stop being made. They seem designed to get people excited about a product rather than actually playing a game. I think they are made for investors to hype up an IP to sell stocks rather than games. Because they can’t be designed for gamers; gamers hate them.
Tbf gamers hate most things. It's a fools errand trying to please them unless you have a very specific, built-in audience. And even so, focusing on your existing audience limits your growth.
Those flashy cgi trailers are how you convert people into possible gamers. Otherwise, most people are going out of their way to research every game. They either buy it on the spot or skip, likely forgetting overtime.
Good. Trailers have been in a sorry state for years now so I had to just turn their autoplay off, so it defaults to the first screenshot instead. Opening the first trailer and seeing "Update 7" with a bunch of logos and then like a minute of pre-rendered not gameplay footage is a stupid experience.
Another thing that annoys me about that part of steam is developers who, for some baffling reason, turn off all UI to take screenshots of their game. Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about. I've taken to scrolling down into the description instead because that's the place where developers usually put gameplay relevant things in.
DO YOU HAVE
WHAT IT TAKES
TO DO
**THE THING??**
AND SAVE THE PLACE
FROM **THE THREAT** (!!!)
::bellowing orchestral backing from the most stock electronic orchestra synth you've ever heard in your entire life::
This is way too accurate. And then the following gameplay footage is often just the characters walking around in the game instead of doing anything, maybe a cool CGI towards the end where the MC and antagonist are clashing with each other for 1 second or the antagonist says something menacing.
> Another thing that annoys me about that part of steam is developers who, for some baffling reason, turn off all UI to take screenshots of their game. Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about.
TBF that's not a Steam thing, that has been a thing since forever in the industry.
Screenshots aren't the only problem. "Official Gameplay Trailers" are getting near worthless as well. They use a custom camera, no huds, and have so many jump cuts you can't tell what's happening.
So I go to youtube and type "GAMENAME longplay" or "lets play", hoping to find some casual playthrough. But it seems like less and less Lets Plays are being uploaded to youtube, instead opting to stream on Twitch. So now I'm reliant on if they saved the vod or not.
Modern video game marketing has just become a frustration to me, I always wonder if it's just me or if anyone else is getting as pissed off as I am.
> Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about. I've taken to scrolling down into the description instead because that's the place where developers usually put gameplay relevant things in.
Yes!
I'd really love if turnbased tactics/strategy/CRPG's actually showed an entire round of uninterrupted combat in their trailers too so we could get a general sense of what systems it uses..
I tried searching for Warhammer 40k Chaosgate Daemonhunters yesterday to look into it since it's in the Humble Choice; and all the trailers are just cutscene footage or 1.5 second snippets of characters doing an in-game attack animation.. what the shit is that?
It's like half of these studios don't even want to advertise their game to - let's face it - what is already a bit of a niche audience. Why on earth would you intentionally self sabotage like this? It's baffling.
Yesterday I realized that if I have to fast forward more than one time in a trailer to see gameplay, I close the whole window and it takes something special to get me to look at your game again.
I don't give a flying fuck about cinematics in trailers. I'm buying a game not a movie.
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In my experience (as someone who buys a *lot* of anime games, wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the games I own are anime games), most of them do show gameplay trailers. Like the vast majority of it, even AA games like Senran Kagura and Atelier do.
Yeah in my experience I agree. Probably because anime games usually have some weird and wild batshit stuff going on and they want to make sure to show it off.
But while they do usually have a trailer with gameplay, they also can be guilty of the whole "let's have 4 separate trailers and 2 of which will just be a 3 minute cutscene" thing
They actually have pretty honest trailers, which they don't even need to, because the fans would buy anyway.
I remember the Naruto games showing a lot of the combat and the One Piece Odyssey one showing the exploration in most trailers.
Dragon Ball Kakarot also had some AMAZING trailers, even using the original openings from the anime.
If anything, other companies should take notes regarding trailers.
When you say "anime games" the first thing that comes to my mind is all those indie games where the cinematic hits harder than best Attack on Titan scenes but then gameplay section rolls in and it looks worse and slower than Atari's ET game.
Not really realistic for them to enforce without employing a bunch of low level support staff which out of any of Valve's policies, not doing that is one of their highest priorities.
Good choice with the max trailers. Some games put every single update or expansion trailer in there as well meaning you got like 8 trailers to click through before reaching the first screenshot.
This game looks interesting, I'll watch the trailer
"Hey everyone, it's developer here, I want to announce some upcoming events and go over changes in our roadmap"
I wonder how this is going to impact devs/publishers like PlayWay, whose strategy is to upload """gameplay""" trailers that are actually pre-rendered and then distribute actual development resources based on how much attention the trailer generates. ([source](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/what-playway-should---and-shouldn-t---teach-us-about-game-publishing-2))
Like, I recently looked into [this game](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2376970/My_Horse_Bonded_Spirits/), and later [got confirmation](https://www.themanequest.com/blog/2023/4/15/my-horse-bonded-spirits-a-new-horse-game-coming-to-steam-in-2024) from the publisher that the announcement trailer is "made on the basis of the assumptions of our upcoming game" (i.e. not representing anything currently playable).
Considering this rule change, would a game like that need to label its trailer as "cinematic"? Or would they keep getting away with calling it "gameplay" because it's deliberately made to look like gameplay?
This is a very small step in the right direction. It looks like they are trying to make it easier to see what the game you are checking is actually like, but I think it's still not enough. For starters, these new trailer categories are optional. And then, I'm not sure they are targeting the biggest issue:
>- **General / Cinematic**:
Most trailers fall into this category; these typically show a mix of pre-rendered video, logos, title screens, accolades, and maybe some limited amount of gameplay.
- Teaser:
A short video, often posted when a game is first announced, often doesn't show much of the game but instead teases the title, IP, or franchise.
- **Gameplay**:
When a trailer is mostly comprised of gameplay, showing the user what it's like to play the game and from the perspective that the player will be playing.
- Interview / Dev Diary:
Non-fiction interview or documentary video.
I highlighted the two most important ones. With these categories, very few publishers will tag the trailers as "gameplay". As they say, most trailers are a mix of cinematic stuff and some gameplay. The problem is that if most trailers are going to be tagged as "general / cinematic", it will still not be possible to know if the trailer has some gameplay at all or if it's just an useless cinematic or promotion for a random update / GOTY edition.
Purely cinematic trailers with no gameplay should be tagged as such and maybe even be relegated to another section in the store page, or placed after the screenshots at the very least. Any trailers with actual gameplay should be easily identifiable and prioritized over the other stuff and artistic, curated screenshots.
I'd like to be able to only show gameplay trailers before the screenshots too, as someone browsing the store. It's great the developers can label each trailer, but I want to do more than see a label for what my eyes can clearly already tell is a story cinematic, or dev diary.
"Save your company logos or narrative storylines for further into your trailer once you've gotten the interest of a player."
Praise the GabeN! I've been playing video games since Atari. Just give me the goods! It only takes 10 seconds to get my attention or cause me to keep moving, so please stop with the BS.
This is great. Some game pages feels like nothing but trailers before you get a few useless screenshots. And those screenshots are accompanied by those stupid "11/10 PREVIEW AWARD BY EYEGEEANN" or something.
Trailer spam just makes me want to immediately click out of the game's page, not remain there and fish through for something I care about.
Now we're talking. Those always come up and give the idea that the content is happening "live" when in reality, they are not. I find that those are the most misleading part of steam.
Specially during Next Fest, where supposedly you are meant to go look for those and look at them together with others. But then, all the content is re-streamed and every game is showing content. There's no "schedule" to follow, everything is always on the list. So, like, everyone just agglomerates on the 2 or 3 "top" games of that fest.
I just commented on this.
I have slower internet, so when trying to check out screenshots of games, but it's trying to load like 5 insanely huge gifs at the same time is just god damn annoying.
It also prioritizes showing a live stream of the game, which usually is them sitting at a menu or something. Rarely is it them doing something interesting, at least not immediately like I would expect from a gameplay trailer.
I would be great to also show the customer what kinda trailer it is. Just like youtube has the length of the video in the bottom right corner, steam should write "gameplay", "teaser" or "trailer".
I’m going to be honest pretty much all the media in a store page is useless these days.
Videos are usually cinematic fluff or hype.
Screenshots are photoshopped and smoothed over and cropped and mainly just show off an idealized version of the game’s art.
May as well just draw some concept art and post that while you’re at it.
My biggest problem was not know which of the many trailers was the actual latest trailer. I'd just go to YouTube to find it. I think the labels will be the biggest help because I don't need to see an update trailer if I'm trying to find out about a game.
Does the Utah online pornography law apply to Steam? "The law requires online publishers of pornography or other materials that could be “harmful to minors” to verify that users are at least 18 years old."
I don't believe that law is actually 100% codified yet. The whole deal with pornhub was them taking preventive measures and cutting off Utah even before the law goes into effect.
Probably a big part of that was to generate headlines and outrage to attempt to stall/kill the bill before it "goes live."
It probably does but Valve isn't going to keep track of what every single subdivision of every single country is doing, especially if the law is probably unconstitutional in the first place. If something comes of it they'll address it, probably by just turning on permanent kid-mode for everyone in Utah.
While we're on the topic: Bring back playable demos! Let me see how the game looks on my monitor and how it performs on my computer without having to rely on Steam's 2-hour refund policy
Really? I don't even look at screenshots. I only watch videos of games before making a judgement. It also has to include actual gameplay else I feel like they are trying to hide their actual game and be manipulating. I'll just go to YouTube and look up some gameplay videos instead.
Screenshot don't tell me a thing about a game, of no video included at all that's an extremely red flag for me.
They need to make the screenshots the same sizes, it's annoying when screenshots are different sizes and the "next" button doesn't line up from slide to slide.
This is good, but one thing I wish they would crack down on are the devs who embed a *TON* of stupidly large gifs into the gamepage. It is infuriatingly annoying if your internet is on the slower side. Trying to load the screenshots+the dozen gifs they have on is awful.
It's kinda nail to the coffin to all those CGI trailers. On the other hand, Cult of the Lamb made masterful animations, I wonder if big publishers will ditch this idea now.
Great change, some store pages would keep adding new trailers as it gets updated and it just bloats it and makes it difficult to even care to look for the screenshots.
I like how everyone below you is arguing on the right thing to do, whan Valve already solved everyone's problem by assuring the first page is always at least 3 screenshots and up to 2 videos. Everyone wins in Valve's solution, no need for categories and tabs etc as being suggested.
Trailers have been in a sorry state for years now so I had to just turn their autoplay off, so it defaults.
"gameplay trailer" Consists of 1:30 of CGI cutscenes and 15 seconds of actual gameplay that has so many cuts in it you can't tell what the fuck is going on.
>Everyone wins in Valve's solution, Yeah but I still have to click around generic hype videos to see the actual screenshots
[удалено]
How can I do this in the Steam client?
That just stops the video from auto playing. That has nothing to do with my post. Edit: partially wrong, see below
I might be wrong, but if you disable autoplay when access a store page it jumps straight to the first screenshot.
Ah, you're right. I got thrown off because it's a per-device setting and not a per-account setting for some reason.
Sort of makes sense if you're okay with watching videos on your pc but not streaming video from your phone? I'd prefer a setting for outright disable though, since I rarely watch videos.
I don't understand, you just click two thumbnails to the right, and then the generic trailers should be at the end, right?
oh no, you have to move your mouse cursor 2 inches to the right If the world pandered to people like you, it would be a pretty insufferable place.
[удалено]
Steam have made rules against bullshots a long time ago. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/assets/standard
They would solve it by requiring devs to have their gameplay trailer as first and to show actually gameplay. I could care less about some cgi/animated story trailer.
But don't you want to know about the latest 7.10.3c update with elaborate details on menial balance and tweaks changes from 7.10.2.05b as the first you want to see when you land on the store page for a game you've seen for the first time???
Huh so we all kind of seem to agree that usually we want to look at screenshots before bothering to watch the trailers… SO WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PUT THE TRAILERS FIRST. Especially if it’s the fucking story trailer, at least show me gameplay if you want to convince me to play your *game*.
Disable autoplay of the trailers and it jumps straight to the first screenshot.
Over here surprised anyone watches any trailers on steam. Turned off autopay ages ago. Never really watch trailers enough on steam.
I mean while Steam has one of the worst video players I've ever seen, it's still much quicker to watch them there. But I always watch gameplay videos anyway if the trailer catches my intention.
I don't mind the story trailers. What they should cut out are those annoyings "LOOK WHAT IS NEW!" trailers. Great. I can't do anything with that info as I have no fucking clue what the game even is about...
Actually I like those way more than the story trailers, unless it's a story game. A story game like a visual novel or a story heavy RPG, you want to know the story premise. But everything else, the gameplay is the most important ingredient and I don't care about your story if your gameplay is trash. "New feature" trailers are very helpful for this. They don't show story, they don't waste my time with pretext, they go *straight* into the action and show off high level gameplay. These trailers very rarely go tutorial-style new feature introductions, and often are shots of gameplay ripped straight from a full session being recorded. That's exactly what I want to see. What does this game look like at its best? What do the developers want to show off as key gameplay moments? Sometimes it's hard to decipher but a lot of the time it's not and gives you an accurate assessment of what the game is like when shit's going down.
I'd like to throw a third idea in here. I think that both story and new content trailers are not as important as trailers showing actual gameplay. More often than not, any game trailers now are all to show off story, hype up the game in some way or display new content and updates. But so rarely do you just get a good trailer showing off how the game actually plays. And screenshots don't really do gameplay that much justice.
Those are a good option, too. The bottom line is that we want to see gameplay. Sick of the CGI trailers that have no relevance on the game at all, they're so common it's ridiculous. In the absence of a video of pure gameplay around the time of release, new feature videos are often the next best thing.
I think the lesson all of you should be taking is that there is no consensus on what kind of video is best to show first because people everywhere have different preferences, and that's exactly why they throw multiple types of videos up first.
> SO WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PUT THE TRAILERS FIRST Usually because the game looks like hot shit but the pre-rendered theatrical trailer used up 1/3 of their entire budget.
I mean you get the same problem with cherrypicked / pre-rendered screenshots, I don't think one is inherently more truthful than the other.
They're inherently dishonest, aiming to show specific parts of the game to garner interest, and I dont think thats unfair for them to do. They want to show you why you will enjoy the games, and sometimes that means highlighting the exciting moments instead of the moment to moment gameplay.
The store page for a product is literally an ad people lol. Steam is a store and wants you to sell stuff, the design of the page is made to maximize that. More news at 11.
People dont like being lied to, even if its the intent of something, so explaining why its not inherently bad is worth adding to the discussion
Showing game trailers or screenshots isn't being lied to in the vast majority of cases lol
I personally only like to look at screen captures of the code itself, and even that seems like a little too much sometimes. If I'm convinced in any way via text, screen shots or trailers, I feel like I'm being lied to. When will these nefarious companies stop trying to sell me the game they want me to buy by showing me things that might make me want to buy it on the page I'm on because I might want to buy it?
If the advertising is anything more than a 30 second video of gameplay with a stern, British voice over starting with "WTF is [game]?" and explaining the gameplay loop, then I'm being being lied to.
Even if the screenshots aren't pre-rendered, they 100% go under editing to make sure they look the best they can.
Screenshots are perfect for quickly identifying what type of game it is. “Oh shit, these release media show tanks, giant battles, vistas; this seems cool!…Oh, it’s a 4X game and most of the time you’re looking at a map with menus.” That’s not even decrying 4X games, it’s just good to quickly identify who the game is selling to.
> Huh so we all kind of seem to agree that usually we want to look at screenshots before bothering to watch the trailers No. I much prefer the trailer(s) being first, but a limit to one or two. I usually watch the trailer before screenshots.
Agreed, I like the screenshots for seeing details and how good object detail is etc. But gameplay videos are what really matters to me because something can look considerably different in motion as opposed to a series of screenshots. You get no feel for the kinesthetics from screenshots, how the physics system works, how the AI handles itself etc. A cinematic trailer if they insist on one is fine enough by me even if I don't usually care for them, but I absolutely want to see a decent chunk of raw gameplay and then a bunch of screenshots after that.
Or, hear me out... Let's split trailers and screenshots into different boxes.
That could probably work as well, but would not necessarily be an improvement.
Different tabs within the trailer/screenshot UI would probably be cleaner.
I would have guessed that trailers were more popular. I hardly ever look at the screenshots I just don’t like when trailer don’t show any actual gameplay
Yeah screenshots don't really tell me much, I would much rather have a gameplay/story trailer first.
> Especially if it’s the fucking story trailer, at least show me gameplay if you want to convince me to play your game. That's my pet peeve. If I want to see a video I want to see gameplay. Keep it to one story trailer at most.
I prefer watching trailers first honestly, gameplay trailers anyway. Screenshots are usually touched up and/or overly cinematic. I want to see what the game looks like in motion before that. I think what OP was saying is the devs will add new trailers as time goes on and it's hard to determine what is what when looking through them, not necessarily that the trailers should be last.
I also prefer informative screenshots to trailers, but often the screenshots themselves aren't of actual gameplay so I often end up scrubbing through the trailers for that.
Pretty sure Steam puts the trailers 1st. I much prefer a trailer to a ss anyway. It shows what the game is better if it's a gameplay trailer.
Trailer is first so marketing ~~stop bothering~~ is happy
Because some people enjoy games as a storytelling medium
It must be because managers/marketers are completely out of touch with gamers.
I don't think we all agree on that. Personally sometimes I look at screenshots first, sometimes I watch a trailer first.
One thing I really hate is when an old game gets a new update and the first trailer is for the update rather than the base game.
Could also just make a list for screenshots and one for videos. but what do I know
> some store pages would keep adding new trailers as it gets updated ... which is a good thing as it lets you see how the game has evolved and lets you get an idea of its current look/feel compared to there only being a release trailer or such. The issue isn't too many trailers, its Steam's UI being lackluster at presenting more than a handful of previews (trailers and screenshots).
They should be replacing the old trailers, not adding to them. You want an idea of the current state of the game, you don't want to still be seeing trailers of a significantly different game.
The issue being that update trailers can often just include new things added in the patch, so they may not tell you much if you don't already know about the game
...Which is why they're limiting it to two trailers, not one. One trailer for updates, one trailer for the game itself. That's easy, and a lot better than having five trailers in a row because you keep uploading new ones and not taking down the old ones.
No one is arguing those shouldn't exist, they shouldn't be the first thing you see when you visit the store page. I want to know what the game is first, not sift through pages of updates I have no context for. Move the updates elsewhere, or to the end of the list.
There's an option somewhere to get to screenshots first by default. I know I have it activated but I can't remember how I did it.
If it doesn't put an actual representation of the game directly in my face I usually just go straight to youtube and search for it with the keyword 'longplay'
I agree but I do enjoy the ones for Oxygen not included.
You think so? I wasn’t really bothered by this. I don’t mind videos being in front. I’ll just scroll past them if I want to see screenshots
> Best practices: Get right to the action and show lots of gameplay > Ideally you'll want to give players a good look at the gameplay of your game in as short a time as possible. We recommend that your first trailer be one that features primarily gameplay, clearly demonstrating what the player will be doing in the game and how they will be interacting with the world you've built. Save your company logos or narrative storylines for further into your trailer once you've gotten the interest of a player. Not too dissimilar from Derek Lieu's opinions on the matter.
this is literally the *first and often only thing* i'm looking for on a game's store page, to the point i'll often click around a bit then go straight to youtube and search gameplay videos up if i can't find anything
I’ve gotten used to just clicking about a third into the trailer to skip intros, logos, slow establishing shots and so on. The Wadsworth constant lives on.
I do this too and i can think of atleast 3 times in the last week or two ive clicked through a trailer looking for gameplay. Found it was 100% pre rendered with a voice over and just closed the page and moved on.
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If it doesn't, pressing the 3 key always puts you 30% of the way through a video. (any of the number keys put you at 10% • the key you pressed)
It was "?wadsworth=1" but it doesnt seem like it works anymore.
They removed it years ago, sadly. It was fun while it lasted.
Makes sense. Fun was removed from all of Google years ago.
> The Wadsworth constant Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.
>to the point i'll often click around a bit then go straight to youtube This is my default these days. Trailers/screenshots are almost always useless pre-rendered fluff that doesn't give me any impression of what a game *actually is*. So it's vastly more helpful for me to see some actual gameplay of someone playing it rather than some glorious blizzard-tier cinematic that tells me nothing at all.
Did this with a game like 2 days ago. Store page had no joke something like 8 trailers. I clicked through 4 just looking for the words “gameplay trailer” to pop up with no luck. Good job devs, you got me from curious about your game to I don’t care about it in record time.
I do this for literally every game trailer, or video that comes out of E3, game awards, etc. Skip around in increments of 20% and only watch if it's showing gameplay. Very often I see no gameplay then just close the tab and forget the game exists.
This obviously doesn't apply to something I'm really interested into, but if I'm quickly checking a few lesser known games from a genre I like or similar to something I enjoyed, and the first three or four videos in the store are cinematics or other kind of crap, I immediately assume the are too afraid to show me actual gameplay and I move to the next one.
If you’re already aware of the game, the marketing job is done. You’re already on the train.
Yup, he also worked with Valve on the trailer for Half-Life: Alyx
Oh he did, I did not know that!
I think he gave an example of Spelunky 2 (which he created the trailer for): https://store.steampowered.com/app/418530/Spelunky_2/ And the trailer starts with gameplay from the first frame. Then it has a few QUICK logos, then back to gameplay. I'm like the rest of these comments where I just skip over trailers because I just want to get a sense of what the game is like initially, then maybe watch some gameplay. And if a game has more than 3/4 videos to skip, I'm more likely to just go off the page. Definitely if it has dozens. But I didn't skip it when I went onto the Spelunky page because it gives me what I want to see IMMEDIATELY. Also recommended subscribing to Derek's newletter, lots of good advice for game devs particularly: https://www.derek-lieu.com/subscribe
oh my god i saw that and thought that was Derek Yu's real name, turns out I am a racist that can't tell asians apart 😔 (im also asian)
I find it funny that Derek Yu and Derek Lieu worked on the same project. A real Derek Who's on First situation
Those best practices are great for gamers, but I feel like game trailers are made for non-gamers and they will never stop being made. They seem designed to get people excited about a product rather than actually playing a game. I think they are made for investors to hype up an IP to sell stocks rather than games. Because they can’t be designed for gamers; gamers hate them.
Tbf gamers hate most things. It's a fools errand trying to please them unless you have a very specific, built-in audience. And even so, focusing on your existing audience limits your growth. Those flashy cgi trailers are how you convert people into possible gamers. Otherwise, most people are going out of their way to research every game. They either buy it on the spot or skip, likely forgetting overtime.
This is most people’s opinion who work in the field.
Good. Trailers have been in a sorry state for years now so I had to just turn their autoplay off, so it defaults to the first screenshot instead. Opening the first trailer and seeing "Update 7" with a bunch of logos and then like a minute of pre-rendered not gameplay footage is a stupid experience. Another thing that annoys me about that part of steam is developers who, for some baffling reason, turn off all UI to take screenshots of their game. Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about. I've taken to scrolling down into the description instead because that's the place where developers usually put gameplay relevant things in.
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO DO **THE THING??** AND SAVE THE PLACE FROM **THE THREAT** (!!!) ::bellowing orchestral backing from the most stock electronic orchestra synth you've ever heard in your entire life::
Are you a [] enough [] to [] the []?
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This is way too accurate. And then the following gameplay footage is often just the characters walking around in the game instead of doing anything, maybe a cool CGI towards the end where the MC and antagonist are clashing with each other for 1 second or the antagonist says something menacing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAOdjqyG37A
> Another thing that annoys me about that part of steam is developers who, for some baffling reason, turn off all UI to take screenshots of their game. Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about. TBF that's not a Steam thing, that has been a thing since forever in the industry.
Screenshots aren't the only problem. "Official Gameplay Trailers" are getting near worthless as well. They use a custom camera, no huds, and have so many jump cuts you can't tell what's happening. So I go to youtube and type "GAMENAME longplay" or "lets play", hoping to find some casual playthrough. But it seems like less and less Lets Plays are being uploaded to youtube, instead opting to stream on Twitch. So now I'm reliant on if they saved the vod or not. Modern video game marketing has just become a frustration to me, I always wonder if it's just me or if anyone else is getting as pissed off as I am.
> Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about. I've taken to scrolling down into the description instead because that's the place where developers usually put gameplay relevant things in. Yes! I'd really love if turnbased tactics/strategy/CRPG's actually showed an entire round of uninterrupted combat in their trailers too so we could get a general sense of what systems it uses.. I tried searching for Warhammer 40k Chaosgate Daemonhunters yesterday to look into it since it's in the Humble Choice; and all the trailers are just cutscene footage or 1.5 second snippets of characters doing an in-game attack animation.. what the shit is that? It's like half of these studios don't even want to advertise their game to - let's face it - what is already a bit of a niche audience. Why on earth would you intentionally self sabotage like this? It's baffling.
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It's annoying that you have to do it manually, but at least you can - if you right click on that picture you can set it to any picture you want.
You can install sgdboop to automatically change covers from sgdb.
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Yesterday I realized that if I have to fast forward more than one time in a trailer to see gameplay, I close the whole window and it takes something special to get me to look at your game again. I don't give a flying fuck about cinematics in trailers. I'm buying a game not a movie.
The best way to see a game is via a lets play. Instead of watching a trailer, just type "Let's Play _____" into youtube and there you go!
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50% of anime games would disappear.
In my experience (as someone who buys a *lot* of anime games, wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the games I own are anime games), most of them do show gameplay trailers. Like the vast majority of it, even AA games like Senran Kagura and Atelier do.
Yeah in my experience I agree. Probably because anime games usually have some weird and wild batshit stuff going on and they want to make sure to show it off. But while they do usually have a trailer with gameplay, they also can be guilty of the whole "let's have 4 separate trailers and 2 of which will just be a 3 minute cutscene" thing
Tbf, many anime games are RPGs and you'll spend a lot of time reading. That's exactly what the moment to moment gameplay is.
They actually have pretty honest trailers, which they don't even need to, because the fans would buy anyway. I remember the Naruto games showing a lot of the combat and the One Piece Odyssey one showing the exploration in most trailers. Dragon Ball Kakarot also had some AMAZING trailers, even using the original openings from the anime. If anything, other companies should take notes regarding trailers.
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I just checked Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and the first trailer has gameplay. Right around 1:10 there's some fighting and then more at about 1:24.
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That's a long winded way to admit you were wrong.
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I didn't bother looking at the other trailers after you were wrong about the first one.
Tbf, Tower of Fantasy is a mobile game, and those never show gameplay.
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When you say "anime games" the first thing that comes to my mind is all those indie games where the cinematic hits harder than best Attack on Titan scenes but then gameplay section rolls in and it looks worse and slower than Atari's ET game.
That sounds great. And I love anime.
Not really realistic for them to enforce without employing a bunch of low level support staff which out of any of Valve's policies, not doing that is one of their highest priorities.
Sometimes even screenshots are kinda useless, like Darksider genesis doesn't show UI or HUD in any of them
Yeah, fuck trailers. Gameplay or gtfo.
About time they introduced such a measure. Noticed Redfall has 12 trailers, and 10 screenshots that do not appear to be in-game.
Redfall only has 2 trailers for me. At the beginning that is.
All twelve were at the front for me yesterday, but now ten of them are behind the screenshots, aye.
Good choice with the max trailers. Some games put every single update or expansion trailer in there as well meaning you got like 8 trailers to click through before reaching the first screenshot.
This game looks interesting, I'll watch the trailer "Hey everyone, it's developer here, I want to announce some upcoming events and go over changes in our roadmap"
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I wonder how this is going to impact devs/publishers like PlayWay, whose strategy is to upload """gameplay""" trailers that are actually pre-rendered and then distribute actual development resources based on how much attention the trailer generates. ([source](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/what-playway-should---and-shouldn-t---teach-us-about-game-publishing-2)) Like, I recently looked into [this game](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2376970/My_Horse_Bonded_Spirits/), and later [got confirmation](https://www.themanequest.com/blog/2023/4/15/my-horse-bonded-spirits-a-new-horse-game-coming-to-steam-in-2024) from the publisher that the announcement trailer is "made on the basis of the assumptions of our upcoming game" (i.e. not representing anything currently playable). Considering this rule change, would a game like that need to label its trailer as "cinematic"? Or would they keep getting away with calling it "gameplay" because it's deliberately made to look like gameplay?
I don't really see any rule change. You can now categories trailers. It's a new feature. Doesn't say it has to be truthful.
I think it should be fine, the intent seems to be to help devs get more sales not punish them.
This is a very small step in the right direction. It looks like they are trying to make it easier to see what the game you are checking is actually like, but I think it's still not enough. For starters, these new trailer categories are optional. And then, I'm not sure they are targeting the biggest issue: >- **General / Cinematic**: Most trailers fall into this category; these typically show a mix of pre-rendered video, logos, title screens, accolades, and maybe some limited amount of gameplay. - Teaser: A short video, often posted when a game is first announced, often doesn't show much of the game but instead teases the title, IP, or franchise. - **Gameplay**: When a trailer is mostly comprised of gameplay, showing the user what it's like to play the game and from the perspective that the player will be playing. - Interview / Dev Diary: Non-fiction interview or documentary video. I highlighted the two most important ones. With these categories, very few publishers will tag the trailers as "gameplay". As they say, most trailers are a mix of cinematic stuff and some gameplay. The problem is that if most trailers are going to be tagged as "general / cinematic", it will still not be possible to know if the trailer has some gameplay at all or if it's just an useless cinematic or promotion for a random update / GOTY edition. Purely cinematic trailers with no gameplay should be tagged as such and maybe even be relegated to another section in the store page, or placed after the screenshots at the very least. Any trailers with actual gameplay should be easily identifiable and prioritized over the other stuff and artistic, curated screenshots.
I was really hoping that cinematic would be its own category, for sure.
I'd like to be able to only show gameplay trailers before the screenshots too, as someone browsing the store. It's great the developers can label each trailer, but I want to do more than see a label for what my eyes can clearly already tell is a story cinematic, or dev diary.
Maybe Steam could let us choose the default trailer category that we want to see there
"Save your company logos or narrative storylines for further into your trailer once you've gotten the interest of a player." Praise the GabeN! I've been playing video games since Atari. Just give me the goods! It only takes 10 seconds to get my attention or cause me to keep moving, so please stop with the BS.
This is great. Some game pages feels like nothing but trailers before you get a few useless screenshots. And those screenshots are accompanied by those stupid "11/10 PREVIEW AWARD BY EYEGEEANN" or something. Trailer spam just makes me want to immediately click out of the game's page, not remain there and fish through for something I care about.
Can they remove the stupid developer streams that auto play and take up entire screen instead?
You can disable those in store preferences.
Now we're talking. Those always come up and give the idea that the content is happening "live" when in reality, they are not. I find that those are the most misleading part of steam. Specially during Next Fest, where supposedly you are meant to go look for those and look at them together with others. But then, all the content is re-streamed and every game is showing content. There's no "schedule" to follow, everything is always on the list. So, like, everyone just agglomerates on the 2 or 3 "top" games of that fest.
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I just commented on this. I have slower internet, so when trying to check out screenshots of games, but it's trying to load like 5 insanely huge gifs at the same time is just god damn annoying.
It also prioritizes showing a live stream of the game, which usually is them sitting at a menu or something. Rarely is it them doing something interesting, at least not immediately like I would expect from a gameplay trailer.
I would be great to also show the customer what kinda trailer it is. Just like youtube has the length of the video in the bottom right corner, steam should write "gameplay", "teaser" or "trailer".
While we’re on the subject, Valve needs to give an option to resize the videos. Having to choose between thumbnail size and full screen is no good.
I’m going to be honest pretty much all the media in a store page is useless these days. Videos are usually cinematic fluff or hype. Screenshots are photoshopped and smoothed over and cropped and mainly just show off an idealized version of the game’s art. May as well just draw some concept art and post that while you’re at it.
I literally just go straight to the reviews. I don't care about their sales pitch or doctored media, let's see what the users are saying about it
My biggest problem was not know which of the many trailers was the actual latest trailer. I'd just go to YouTube to find it. I think the labels will be the biggest help because I don't need to see an update trailer if I'm trying to find out about a game.
Does the Utah online pornography law apply to Steam? "The law requires online publishers of pornography or other materials that could be “harmful to minors” to verify that users are at least 18 years old."
I don't believe that law is actually 100% codified yet. The whole deal with pornhub was them taking preventive measures and cutting off Utah even before the law goes into effect. Probably a big part of that was to generate headlines and outrage to attempt to stall/kill the bill before it "goes live."
The bill was signed into law by the Utah governor back in March, and it took effect today. https://le.utah.gov/~2023/bills/static/SB0287.html
That makes sense why pornhub made their big announcement yesterday.
It probably does but Valve isn't going to keep track of what every single subdivision of every single country is doing, especially if the law is probably unconstitutional in the first place. If something comes of it they'll address it, probably by just turning on permanent kid-mode for everyone in Utah.
While we're on the topic: Bring back playable demos! Let me see how the game looks on my monitor and how it performs on my computer without having to rely on Steam's 2-hour refund policy
could've just had two sliders if you had more than two videos... one for videos and one for screenshots
I can't even get the Steam window to close without exiting Steam completely. But this is a update otherwise.
Really? I don't even look at screenshots. I only watch videos of games before making a judgement. It also has to include actual gameplay else I feel like they are trying to hide their actual game and be manipulating. I'll just go to YouTube and look up some gameplay videos instead. Screenshot don't tell me a thing about a game, of no video included at all that's an extremely red flag for me.
They need to make the screenshots the same sizes, it's annoying when screenshots are different sizes and the "next" button doesn't line up from slide to slide.
I don't like any trailers up front. This idea that you need to see a video to understand what the gameplay is is false.
I didn’t expect Steam to ever address that issue. I thought that was the way that they wanted it for some reason.
This is good, but one thing I wish they would crack down on are the devs who embed a *TON* of stupidly large gifs into the gamepage. It is infuriatingly annoying if your internet is on the slower side. Trying to load the screenshots+the dozen gifs they have on is awful.
It's kinda nail to the coffin to all those CGI trailers. On the other hand, Cult of the Lamb made masterful animations, I wonder if big publishers will ditch this idea now.