Game Trailers - "I Am Batman!"

Since the first "trailer" in this series already wasn't really a trailer, but rather some kind of advertisement (in fact every trailer is actually also advertisement, but not every advertisement is also a trailer...), I shamelessly continue this trend and again analyse an ad. And even life-action again! Perhaps I just like the concept of showing gamers instead of games. But in doing so they technically save the hassle of showing actual in-game-sequences that make your mouth water. Instead they just show a bunch of guys having fun (or whatever) playing the game. And hopefully we buy into it because, well, we see that it's fun!

But first things first: Which one is the better Batman?


I think that the people who are responsible for this kind of ad are focused mostly on creating simultaneously someone we can identify with and someone we look up to. We see a slightly overweight guy, sitting on his couch and playing a game. Well, that's us, isn't it?
But they can't stop with that. He can't just sit on his couch and be slightly overweight. He has kind of an awesome apartment after all. I would like to live like that, wouldn't you? And he also seems to be quite witty, has crazy pals and one hell of a flat-screen TV.



Despite all that, I kind of like it. At least I smiled to myself while watching it. They seem to have aimed for the Judd Apatow feeling and they didn't stray too far. Even the product-placement didn't really bother me, we don't have Walmart in Germany anyhow (the link in the YouTube-description even takes you to the "Walmart Gamecenter"...). It seems to be some kind of sponsored advertising. But I don't care.

Perhaps that's what's fashionable now. You don't advertise a game or a console by advertising the games or consoles themselves. Instead you advertise the gaming-experience. In this case it's of course also "Real Life" vs. "Virtual Life". And of course the gamer wins, of course the guy on the couch is superior, while the bad excuse for a batman smacks into the wall.

"Sit down on your couch, experience adventures on your screen and don't break your bones by ziplining into a concrete wall", seems to be the message. And they even are kinda right.
Additionally, those short snippets of gameplay do show that the game is much more exciting than standing on the neighbors roof. And when you smack into the chimney you do lie paralyzed on the ground for a couple of minutes. While the other guy is killing loads of evildoers in his comfortable living room.

Please don't get me wrong. I really liked this one. So far this kind of advertisement still seems fresh to me. But let's see how long that lasts.

By the way: "Batman: Arkham City" will be released in Europe on the 21st of October.