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Your video gives publishers a chance to take a peek at your game without playing it. While you’ll be submitting your vertical slice, just about everyone will start by looking at your pitch deck and your video. That means your video is your game’s first look!
Here’s the most important thing to keep in mind: your audience for this video isn’t players, and this isn’t a commercial trailer. It’s not a teaser trailer for potential players, it’s a pitch to potential investors. It’s just as important to convey information as it is hype.
In many ways, this relieves pressure. You don’t need to spend a few thousand dollars hiring a videographer who can shoot in-engine footage and compile it into a sleek trailer. You should be able to create it yourself.
I’ve heard conflicting advice on video length and format. Some say it should be one minute or less, some say it’s fine if it’s five minutes+. I’m going to talk through both of those extremes a little bit, provide two competing philosophies, and help you make your decision.
The One-Minute Video
The one-minute video acknowledges that everyone has a shorter attention span than they care to admit. Here your goal is to get the audience into the action immediately. Don’t waste time with text-based preambles or introductions, launch them into the action.
Storytelling is as essential in your video as it is in your pitch deck—and it’s much harder when you only have a minute. Don’t be afraid to narrate through on-screen text. Recall that it’s vital that you convey information here. If someone’s watching your video and is confused about what they’re looking at, that’s a problem—even if it looks sick.
The more you can tell a linear story, the easier it is for your audience to follow along. In service to this principle, try not to jump around from cool shot to cool shot unless you’ve established context. If it’s clear that you’re showing different biomes, show different biomes. If you’ve made it clear you’re talking upgrade paths, flash through a few. But don’t just make a “cool clip” list and sprinkle them in. While I think it’s great practice to make a checklist of your coolest features in advance, make sure you then create a script that tells the game’s story, and stick to it.
You don’t have to show everything that your player can do. I’ve watched a lot of 90-120 second videos, and I often lose interest somewhere around the 45 second mark—or, as I think about it, the part where they introduce crafting in a game not centered around crafting.
Most games have “+1” features. These are additional game modes or extracurricular activities that are cool and interesting to an experienced player but not central to your game’s identity. Think really hard about whether you want to include them in a video of this length.
If you’ve played the Witcher III, you know that there’s a card minigame in there called Gwent. Gwent’s actually pretty fun, but do you think it should take up space in a video about one of the best cinematic RPGs of the last 20 years? I don’t, and if it was shoehorned in there, I’d lose the thread. You don’t want your viewers losing the thread.
The key here is to bet on your core features. A lot of scope creep happens when developers introduce +1 features, and scope creep is something that makes publishers nervous. Highlight your core gameplay, and make sure people are gripped and compelled by it by the time the video ends.
Other tips:
It’s generally best to film from the player’s perspective, especially in the first half of the trailer. Recall that no one watching has seen your game before, so they don’t know which camera angles are accurate representations of gameplay. Switching viewpoints to “cinematic angles” does more harm than good early on.
Make sure you include UI! Screencapping the player’s perspective will naturally show parts of your interface, but it’s helpful to demonstrate that you have clean, snappy UI, particularly in games that are UI-intensive.
The Five-Minute Video
I once had a publisher tell me it’s perfectly okay to just film a gameplay session and narrate it—and I agree. Here, the focus isn’t snappiness, it’s context and depth. Since you’ve created the game, you’re a great choice to narrate your experience.
Know that people will be skipping around through your video. Five minutes is a long time. You won’t have the benefit of someone experiencing the whole session at once, at least the first time they load it up.* But if you’re a competent narrator, you’ll be able to keep telling the story no matter where they skip to. Think of it like you’re streaming your game, and consider how popular streamers are for would-be buyers.
If you do this, don’t include a preamble right at the beginning. Jump right in. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand the first 10 seconds of YouTube videos: “Hi I’m so-and-so, welcome to my channel such-and-such.” Yuck. Launch me into the content. You have to do the same with your five-minute video if you don’t want immediate fatigue to set in. That probably also means starting after the main menu, intro, tutorial, etc.
You’re still telling a story with this gameplay session, so don’t get distracted by side quests, just like you wouldn’t mention +1 features in your one-minute video. Even if it’s five minutes, it needs to be digestible.
*The five-minute video pays dividends after the hooks set in, as it’s one of the best information dumps you can provide a publisher.
What should you choose?
I lean toward one minute over five minutes most of the time—primarily because I like using text and cuts to establish a bit of a snappier cadence. I also think one minute is a little more of a traditional choice, which makes it a bit safer. Some publishers might instinctively roll their eyes at a five-minute submission.
Here’s how I would make my decision:
Choose one minute if:
You’re great at video editing.
You’re great at storytelling.
You have issues in your vertical slice that would be exposed in a five-minute format (note: they’re going to come up at some point!)
Choose five minutes if:
You have lots to show in your vertical slice, and you’re happy with people seeing all of it.
You’re struggling to make clips make sense without contextual narration.
Video editing isn’t your strength.
You can, of course, go somewhere between the two, but manicured videos upwards of 90 seconds really lose me. Force yourself to cut it down to the essentials.
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