It's been a couple of years (and a few significant changes around GameDaily BIZ) since we last talked to Hammer Creative. Within that time, the next-gen consoles have released and gaming advertising budgets have gone through the roof. It's changed the mindset of a large ad campaign from being a nice addition to a big game to being a necessity for mainstream success.

But truly, how much have video game trailers evolved and why? And how has the general nature of games altered and enhanced promotional material for games? To answer these questions, we caught up with Hammer's Jim Botko, marketing director, and Scott Hayman, creative director and game footage capture master, to find out what next-gen game ads really are all about.

Marketing camera is a good tool for the trailer forge
One of the more important developments for game trailers is what's referred to in the business as a "marketing camera." This is what allows for all of those amazing, cinematic angles that you'll often see nowadays in trailers and TV spots. It's becoming a feature that more and more developers are adding to their builds, and the results are noticeable every time.

"The marketing camera; is great to have, but it's a developer to developer thing," described Hayman. "Sometimes we get a really flexible build, and other times it might be really basic. In the case of Assassin's Creed, The Darkness, and The Simpson's Game, we could control the camera with the second controller. That is always the best case scenario, because it opens up the possibilities for the different shots. We consider it like a movie shoot, because we can twist the camera; the possibilities are literally infinite. We can spend as much or as little time as we want, at least within our deadlines! We are sometimes able to create such good shots, people think that we're using pre-rendered cinematics."

"Since that's the gameplay and not artificial, it's a great way to show off the game," interjected Botko.

"It's a wonderful alternative to creating a full CGI trailer," continued Hayman. "If you can put in a solid marketing camera in the build, it can make a huge difference. Everybody here [at Hammer] is film oriented; we like to say that we've got a million directors here! It's more than just creating the trailers as well, it's about know-how to use the developer's technology, and we have the know-how as well. Our editing goes a long way to making a game look its best, but being able to control the images really works out for the best. It's great to be able to create the shots we want, as opposed to movies, where we get what they have and we have to work with it."

"We can create all the shots here; we can control quality and manage the speed of it," added Botko.

Smithing out a story
While certainly not a new trend, the storytelling in games has if anything become even more of a focus in the next-generation of games. With increased storage space for elements like voice acting and graphics that are often uncanny in their beauty, the story is becoming an ever increasing part of modern games. This is complementary to Hammer's work, since it allows them to highlight the major themes of a game – like what would be done for a movie – while also showing off the gameplay.

"Stories in games are becoming much more rich," said Hayman. "It used to be about mechanics alone, and not many games had much more story than, say, Donkey Kong. It was fun to bonk people on the head, but nowadays there's a deep story that goes hand in hand with the game mechanics. For us, it's given us the opportunities to present these stories that connect to people on a deeper level; rather than running through a bullet point of game features, it allows us to nail down a narrative in a few minute trailer, similar to with movies. Since that was our first calling, we have editors that are masters of whittling down a story to its essence."

"Games are getting more elaborate and cinematic," expressed Botko. "They didn't have games like Assassin's Creed several years ago. We just did a piece for Gran Turismo 5, and the cars look nearly real! The next step is to have people look real, though it does look pretty real Assassin's Creed. The [difficult] part is always with the face and eyes and making that look real, though Assassin's Creed got around that nicely by giving him a cowl."