Are screenshots pointless ? Do you prefer trailers?

I was reading an interview with a developer a few months ago and his view was that screenshots are pretty pointless these days, for a number of reasons.

Basically, many modern games look much better when they're moving and with video trailer sites becoming more prevalent we should be looking to those if we really want to see what a game is going to look like in action.

His other point was that all screenshots are doctored anyway. It's not hard to make a screenshot look amazing but the games rarely look that good.

Conversely screenshots do a bloody awful job of conveying how good Crackdown looks in real life, simply because it's a massive living breathing city with great architecture and some beatufil artwork which simply can't be captured in a few screenshots.

well i prefer trailers cuz then you see it clearly in action, that's why i always download trailers and don't watch the screens

Screenshots are really bad at at conveying graphics. They always look really blocky to me.

Videos also show of a game engine better, with motion and general control shown well. Screenshots are next to useless because of the generally low quality of the image.

Screenshots are fine for nice wallpaper sometimes... but trailers are not that much better in my honest opinion.

If anything a game trailer is usually more misleading these days. I'm sure many have noticed game developers like to speed up the action for their trailer, when the game itself is played more slowly, or completely differently. Tweaks to the camera angle and objects on screen to make it cinematic only further distort the feel of the gameplay... it's not a movie so why glamorize it as such, unless you are trying to hide something? Unforunately most game developers usually are trying to hide things.

The only thing I trust anymore is a actual game demo that I get to install myself.

Plus in the case of ArmA, where the screenshots were dazzling, and most of the people can't afford the rigs the shots were taken on. So it's a tossup because in some ways, even doctored. In one case the BF2142 movies were well done, showing excellent battles, but anybody who's played the Battlefield series knows how it will really be, so it seemed kinda stupid, but then again it was still entertaining.

Well screenshots show the graphics better than trailers sometimes..unless the trailer is HD......trailers to check gameplay of course

I think I need to clarify my earlier point. By game-trailer I meant in-game video. It's obvious when it's a game trailer that is actually not linked to the gameplay at all, with an example being the recent BF2142 trailer, as EricJ said.

I agree 100% with Kougar. The only way you can tell what a new game will play like is to play a demo rather than believe anything a publisher lets you just watch.

Trailers only let you see how good a game is audio-visually, the game could still have rubbish controls, an even worse plot and absolutely no depth to the experience whatsoever.

Trailers are great for other passive entertainment like movies and TV, but gaming is an interactive medium, and demos should be seen as the equivalent of trailers for games.

I dont mind either... There are situations where trailers arent much better quality than screenshots - e.g. with the CnC3 stuff.

The screenshots i saw of CnC3 were good, and represented the gameplay quite well, whereas the trailer wasnt quite as good (in terms of representation), in that it was unrealistic.

Plus, screenshots are good if bandwidth is used up with a download...

I think any screenshot or trailer should be as high resolution as possible - otherwise it's a waste of time.

Agreed, as it's just not fun sometimes to watch it at low res, but then again you have to accommodate for those who still have 56k (why I don't know, by now it should be almost obsolete, but then again..) to watch the movies, or those who don't have the time to look at it high res at the time.

I think that screenshots help with being able to see what the game looks like and the trailers help you to feel what the game is like to play.

Ok screen shots makes clear the games graphics but not clear the game play or feeling!
But Trailers do them all if it is a fine trailer. i.e HD trailers

Ok screen shots makes clear the games graphics but not clear the game play or feeling!
But Trailers do them all if it is a fine trailer. i.e HD trailers

Ok screen shots makes clear the games graphics but not clear the game play or feeling!
But Trailers do them all if it is a fine trailer. i.e HD trailers.