Square Enix Blockbuster Presents Mock Awards in Launch Trailer

All about the lead up to release Facebookan action-RPG in a new open world from Square Enix, It was bottom button Mess up. But you wouldn’t know it from a launch announcement that stays optimistic about the modern magical adventure by taking a bunch of words out of context and turning them into sneaky prizes.

“This is amazing Facebook The launch announcement is kind of telling us that the game may not actually be that good, and here’s how I know,” said trailer edit fan Derek Liu. In a TikTok video that exploded over the weekend. “The biggest red flag is these quotes that are either one word long or two words long.”

He proceeded to go through each phrase that flashed across the screen during this, finding the original source it came from, and reading the larger context aloud. In almost every case, the meaning was very different from the way the words were presented in the trailer, and it was not intended to be seen as unequivocal praise.

In one example, Square Enix lifted the word “Beautiful” from a December preview Posted in spend. However, in context, the quote wasn’t saying that Facebook It was beautiful but had the “potential” to be a “great story game that will tug your hearts out with each new chapter.” It was, after all, a preview rather than a review of the final game, though the site’s editor said she didn’t object to how the word was used.

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“Square Enix did ask for permission to use the quote, and we did approve,” Distractify gaming editor, Sara Belcher, told Kotaku in an email. “In our actual review, I refer to the game as “beautiful” (this has been my opinion of the game world since the preview, which is why I personally didn’t feel the quote was out of context). We do not charge for the use of quotes in promotional materials.

In another example, file Final Fantasy The maker of the word “impressive” quotes from Detective game. The only problem is that the word in question doesn’t even come from a process preview, but from a file Writing news Sony State of Play gameplay trailer. “Frey’s traversal capabilities are impressive, allowing for quick movement in and out of combat, whether in air or water situations,” the text reads.

To summarize then, FacebookIts most recent trailer included a truncated quote of a person describing one of the older trailers. Detective game‘s actual review gave the game a 7.5 out of 10. It did not include the word “brilliant”, instead describing the overall adventure of main protagonist Fry as “[not] without distinguishing it.”

Detective game He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Liu said Kotaku that the intent of the video was not to claim that he thought the game was or would be bad, but rather that the misleading frame strongly suggested that Square Enix wasn’t confident enough in the game to let it stand on its own without the fake awards.

“They may be completely wrong to take this approach, and the game is actually good, or has advantages that they could focus on instead of looking for quotes,” he said. “So I think it speaks more about the people responsible for marketing the game than it does about the game itself.”

Companies’ reliance on misleading quotes from critics and review outlets Nothing new. Sometimes they remove the original context. Sometimes they’re just looking for any source, reputable or not, that says your game is great. The prizes themselves are always in giant fonts while the posts they’re pulled from are too small to read unless you take the time to analyze them in a TikTok video like Lieu.

For comparison, he also shared two Forpsoken Promotional offers that make the game look attractive without resorting to lies. The first was View trailer Released last month. The second was a review of Current social media trailer It’s been roasted again and again online for Joss Whedon-style fourth-wall-breaking dialogue.

“The real problem isn’t the narrative at all, it’s that they don’t lean too heavily on the tone that the narrative should sell and I know that because I’ve proven it now just to be sure,” he wrote. Twitter user spellbang who took the same ingredients but remixed them in a way that sounded cooler while retaining the sensibility of the original.

Regardless of the technical ingenuity behind creating a good video game trailer, lying is bad and companies should not do it. It’s bad enough when it’s a trailer full of pre-baked footage masks for, say, how bad the game actually runs. It’s even worse, when companies go out of their way to try and trap independent media in their deception. Publishers are supposed to get permission before using others’ quotes in their marketing, and to be transparent about how they are used.

Square Enix He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.