Videogames 3 - Assassin's Creed: the role of trailers in marketing

The role of trailers - Assassin's Creed: Valhalla pre-release trailer

David Hesmondhalgh: it is essential for media industries to minimise risk, and to maximise profit

context:

• the exam board has moved from looking at one game to an entire game franchise: Assassins creed. assassins creed: Valhalla is unreleased but we can refer to the trailer and online disscussions around the upcoming game.
• Valhalla is a triple A game (AAA is an informal classification used for video games produced and distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, typically having higher development and marketing budgets. AAA is analogous to the film industry term "blockbuster") this means its expensive to make and will equally be expensive to buy.
• RRP is currently £59.99, a somewhat common price tag for a big game (pre-order currently as its not released)
• video games decrease in price after their release, as new bigger, better games are in progress or are released. most people will not buy games when they first release at full retail price but many still do. to the game developers and distributers, they will want to make the most money possible by getting more people to pre-order and buy on first release. they will do this with the use of all sorts of a strong marketing campaign.
• Trailers and promos are an essential part of production and distrubution and work as viral marketing and word-of-mouth to target more audiences. 
• Trailers are digitally distributed, anyone can access it and watch as many times as they want.

how does this trailer target a specilised and genralised audience?

• IGN posts game trailers- posted the trailer for this game. IGN stands for internet gaming network, is a huge platform so can reach a wide audience of video games enthusiasts beyond the assassins creed franchise. 
• also easily accessible to a wide audience as cross convergence media platform is used to publish the trailer, youtube. 
• Attracts a global audience by using universal themes like history and violence and locations that people may recognise in the gameplay and trailer which is exciting for audiences. 
• High production values - big budget video game would attract general audience as it looks well produced with the music, cast of many, battle scenes and use of hair on the characters which is very difficult to do. Uses pre-rendered graphics thats not actual game play.
• Paradigmatic features of film trailers - genre conventions of film trailer like voice-over, narrative and range of different scenes with no hint of any buttons being used in this trailer. Used as build up to attract people not interested in videogames to excite them and make them consider the game.
• Clear Narrative - establishment of equilibrium of peace with ideas of good and evil that invade the land and battle which is the choice of the player in the end. Shows general audience that this isn't a small arcade game and it's exciting and uses a story line to convey that.
• Intertextuality - makes reference to other Assassin's Creed games as it's on the same theme as the other games, which targets specialised audience as they'd know all these features already. Mass audiences can appreciate the references as it can link to popular films such as Game of Thrones with the mise-en-scene and dark scenes which can indicate to a main stream audience that the game is similar to make them buy and play the game.
• Assassin's Creed is of a hybrid genre - historical genre combined with science fiction
• A local theme to attract people to buy the game Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is that it is set in North of England, so people who live in the North of England can recognise locations where they live, which is exciting and may motivate them to buy the game. A global theme to attract people to buy the game is that the trailer uses universal themes, such as violence and history (such as the Vikings) to interest people, as this is common, universal knowledge for people. this therfore incorporates both a local and global audience.