Jeez, they're just pixels... (Dead Island announcement trailer)

I will admit, I'd totally forgotten about Techland's Dead Island seeing as I hadn't heard anything of it for, oh, I don't know, about three years, but it's suddenly re-emerged back onto the internet like a popstar making a comeback in bad taste.

People have been debating whether or not this trailer goes a bit too far to publicize the game. Some people believe that the use of the death of a little girl and images of her dying is a cold marketing technique used to create some kind of thin emotional bond with a product, whilst others believe that it's well - used, tasteful, and thoroughly artistic. I can't say I agree with either of these ideas (Though I do lean more towards the latter).

This trailer is for promotion. It is for advertisement, but in its simplest form, it is pixelated. Yes, a little girl just got mauled by zombies and thrown through a window, but it was done with as much taste and sensitivity as could be achieved considering the subject matter. My main problem with the trailer is not the so called 'controversy' but its lack of attachment to the game itself. 

I ranted about this for a good four paragraphs or so in my ZZN article so I won't push the point any further (or shamelessly promote my writing any more... in this post) but to be honest, I think we have far more to complain about in advertising than some pixelated brain muncher, little girl or not, getting fragged. How about all those food adverts constantly screaming at us that we're all fat and we're going to die at age thirty weighing about 30 stone unless we consume more-of-whatever-shit-this-product-has-in-it, for example? That is true cruelty and manipulation through advertisement, and I can assure you, it has caused far more harm than the poignancy of Dead Island's rather effective trailer.

Hell, the trailer might have been pretty tragic, and seeing the dead little pixels may have been shocking for a sheltered few, but at least the trailer did something different for once. Unlike Killzone 3, Call of Duty whatever-number-it-is-now or pretty much 70% of all trailers these days. In short: The trailer should be viewed as something well - rendered and artistically valuable, but please, scream 'controversy' no more, it's just a short digital video.
-L