Fake trailers

 Hey... there's no KOTOR III!

We live in an age of copycats and shapeshifters; where our eyes can no longer be trusted to discern the real from the unreal anymore. A world of lies and mistruths, in which the shiny new teaser trailer for a game that was just announced turns out to be just another damn 'concept trailer' put together by someone who's only qualification is "I've watched a bunch of trailers and I sort of know how they go but not really." If I'm being honest with myself I'd say that this is more of an issue for the movie trailer than the video game trailers for the plain fact that I'm pretty much ontop of the video game industry and known pretty definitively if a game has a trailer or if I'm being punked; but I still remembering being absolutely blasted by a 'concept' Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake trailer, in the heart of the remake craze, so I'm not about to just forgive and forget. Oh no, I'm going nuclear.

Clickbait is not a new phrase by any stretch of the imagination, or a new concept; and in fact it's something I've never had a huge issue with. Typically coined in reference to garbage side bar articles leeching off legitimate news sites; the Youtube iteration of clickbait has been mostly inoffensive and predictable for the most part. It started off with videos that posted scantily clad women in their thumbnails to farm clicks, then someone discovered that adding yellow arrows and red circles helped draw the wandering viewers eyes. Recently there's been a trend of borrowing people's thumbnail art style to try and invoke the same sort of viewer that other video would; such as the SunnyV2 drawn-style image for shortform Internet personality documentaries. I can deal with all of this, these are just the ways in which the influencer game is played. What I can't accept, are the liars. 

Where my finger points with that accusation is at Youtube channels like Screen Culture or Teaser Play; channels that I'm sure would scream to the high heavens how they put 'concept' in the teaser or description so as to not mislead people; and then go to pains to copy studio logos and thumbnail flairs to catch the unobservant off guard. (Also, they always stick the 'clarifier' adjective at the end of a long title or somewhere in the description that requires you to click to see it; which belies their true intention rather nicely.) Their 'concept' defence is a pale and gutless excuse to score some desperate and mislead views, or rather, Screen Culture's is. Teaser Play actually has some positive buzz around it for some absolutely incomprehensible reason, but I get to them in good time. First, let me talk about the movie rip off artists.

If you follow any of the blockbusters of the day, or the MCU, then you pretty much know every single movie which is going to hit the cinema screens over the next few years. You may not know exactly when they're coming, but yearly studio release windows and predictable sequels are there own crystal ball in the movie business. As such, all it takes is one bad actor with decent skills at photoshop to steal the names of known upcoming movies and fabricate a trailer with a convincing thumbnail and a runtime comprised of completely recycled show or movie scenes poor stitched together in a boring fashion. I cannot stress this enough, there's not a hint of artistry or ingenuity behind the actual footage of any of these trailers, so I can only assume the 'concept' all these videos hide behind is the 'concept' of being a literal emotionless computer putting together trailers to ill effect. And whenever they do try to come up with their own ideas, you get fake trailers like "Iron Man 4: The Rise of Morgan Stark" which is one of the absolute worse titles for a Marvel movie conceivable, whoever dreamt that up should be actually ashamed of themselves. That is truly pathetic title-work.

And what about 'Teaser play'? Well, those guys work more with fan expectations for video game sequels and Remakes that could feasibly exist in the very near future, what with the world of cyclical creativity the industry has made for us. How do they capture this world? With what are known as 'Unreal Engine 5 concepts', which to explain in plain terms: It means that they scrambled together increadibly rough assets to put together a small video that sort of resembles the product they're teasing. To their credit, Teaser Play puts in several worlds more effort than Screen Culture ever could on their best day. But considering Screen Culture literally just cuts together copyrighted footage, that really isn't a high bar to clear, now is it?

The Unreal Engine 5 toolkit is increadibly pretty all on it's ownsome, and our trailer maker makes great use of that fact, and a whole lot of stock assets and/or extracted models, to stage the least impressive looking visual 'teasers' a game could have. I mean sure, you'll find content starved games journalists bragging about this so that they fill the void between pathetically trying to disparage Naoki Yoshida for answering a complicated question in a manner too intelligent for their tiny brains to follow and knocking the Spiderman game for not condemning the corrupt institution of the New York police force enough. Why not praise a vapid concept trailer for merely existing? We've got no credibility or respect as it is!

As it stands, if you watch any of these unreal concepts you'll get exactly this. Shots of the protagonist player model slowly walking through environments that vaguely resemble the game world you remember using the exact same walk cycle even when it's abundantly clear that this cycle doesn't work very well on most of the models. Maybe you'll see some rough running and jumping or driving, or a bad money shot of an unconvincing face model, or all manner of assets that aren't correctly configured. HUDs that display incorrect information, static mini-maps. And then you'll scroll and see people in the comments totally blinded by their love the original property and the glitz of Unreal 5 singing their praises of the talent on display and holding this up as the example for the industry to live up to. I can't convey how upsetting that is, that people look at these heartless, lifeless, passionless, borefests and eat them up like kibble treats. I wonder what you'd find if you compared their Silent Hill 2 Remake with the actual Silent Hill 2 Remake which was announced just weeks after their 'concept'? Do you think that would be enough to shake the enraptured from this channel's snare?

The allure of fake trailers is predicated on lies and misdirection, often utilising fabricated images, company logos and falsified 'TM's. In essence, they're a peddler of mistruths for that quick first click, hoping to ride on other's brand recognition for good press. And it works, that's the worst part. These channels get their views, they make their money and clout, all based on the crooked spine of abject untruth. These are the sorts of creators that give honest creatives, those working around the teeth of the fair-use bear trap, an awful name; eclipsed only by the straight reposters. Rip-off artists and dream peddlers and I have zero respect for any of them. My advise, avoid them like the plague. At least until they learn what an actual 'concept' actually is.