The one thing that has drawn my utmost attention this E3 is the fantastic job developers have done on producing beautiful trailers for their games. The very first trailer I saw was for Assassin's Creed Revelations. Everything about the trailer tickled my fancy. The stunning graphics. The heavy yet appropriate music. Everything about the trailer has made me excited for the game.
After viewing the trailer I dived into a mini obsession for Assassin's Creed. I watched all the game play videos provided on youtube and even went as far as purchasing AC:Brotherhood. The game is still sitting in my PS3 and will probably not be removed until I get that usual overplay fatigue. Now whats making this a phenomenon is that fact that I have never had a serious interest in Assassin's Creed before. I had played the PSP title but that was the extent of my time with the brand. I can even recall going to Gamestop several times and the cashier would ask the usual, "do you want to reserve anything?" I would reply with a no and when the cashier began to suggest games and Assassin's Creed was one I would retort with "I've never been interested in Assassin's Creed enough to pay $60 for it." The trailer has changed that for me.It was a trailer that raped my mind with the contents of a three minute music video for a video game.
The Revelations trailer is not the only video game that has had a rippling effect. Remember when Dead Island first debuted the family trailer on Youtube. It blew up like a grenade in a FPS. At that moment my interest for everything zombies was heightened. When Brink first hit the internet I went on a mad dash to find what I could just to be disappointed that there was only one trailer for it at the time. Whoever is directing the trailers of these games should be given awards. They are doing their jobs to a tee. If a game developer asked me to put together a trailer to sell a game I wouldn't be able to reproduce anything as close to what some of these guys are doing.
(looking at the clock. its taking me a long time to write this.)
So TL:DR Trailers that work are awesome. Unless the game ends up not doing well.(Brink!!)