As a pilot study for my dissertation, I wanted to explore a phenomenon I experienced during the marketing campaign for Assassin’s Creed Mirage (2023). I’m by no means trying to ‘crap on‘ (excuse my language) Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s campaign because I feel it was executed diligently. Instead, I’m attempting to highlight a problem within the industry, and that is; whether cinematic trailers are ultimately useful in video game marketing. 

The key question is: Why show fans something that they won’t get to play and experience visually? and; Why should we not stick to in-game trailers, since everyone will play what is advertised?

To research this I conducted a focus group comprising of university students with gaming backgrounds. They were exposed to cinematic and gameplay trailers for four games released between 2020-2023, and were measured based on how their perception changed from the systematic exposure of both cinematic and gameplay trailers. 

Click below to read the full report.