10 Most Insulting Video Game Industry Habits (That Have To End)

Trailers for future releases are a huge deal in the modern games industry, comparable to their film equivalents in terms of awe-inspiring visual spectacle. Increasingly revealing showcases are now dropped over the course of months or even years through events like E3 and the Tokyo Game Show, shared to the world in an instant through the likes of YouTube.

Sometimes these can have little relation to the actual game itself and are purely designed to incite buzz, such as the case of the highly emotional initial trailer for Dead Island that earned plaudits from Steven Spielberg for its cinematic credentials, no less. Far more annoying is when seemingly incredible visuals are presented as if they were gameplay footage, but the graphics in the actual game end up not matching them at all.

This can be partially attributed to the quality of televisions, given that games showcased in 4 or 8k resolution but played through devices that only support 1080p or 720p will understandably be visually inferior, but publishers are far too often guilty of ‘sexing up’ footage.

Criticism of the practice could be construed as trivial. Does anyone ‘truly’ care about Spider-Man’s puddles, for instance? But deceptive marketing that misleads customers can never really be justified, regardless of its commonality.