Orange Box Trailer by Valve

I doubt this will make it on the airwaves. It's not a good commercial at all.




But if it does make it.................
 
not enough product time.

the other one was much better, at least it showcased the products and was somewhat memorable
 
Anyone else a bit perplexed by the rate the earth is spinning relative to the meteor in the shots from space? It looks like it could have orbited the entire earth twice at that speed, and yet you can see it glinting in one spot in the sky when it goes back to the shots from earth... wtf?

They would have been better off letting EA handle the ad, tbh. Shit games, but atleast they know how to market them.
 
Thats kind of cool. Doesnt show any kind in-game action though which might confuse

Well neither did the Gears of War trailer or the Halo 3 ones and they were still well received. I duno, I don't think you need to show the game to get attention.

Trailers alright, but I agree the "meet the engineer/soldier/engineer/etc" trailers are funnier and would be better. Then again it may be devoting too much focus to the other 2 titles in the box, especially when half life is ultimately still the big one in the box. I realise they don't say alot to advertise the fact that the box is predomintly half life titles in this ad, but at the same time they don't do anything to suggest that the ads for TF2 over HL2/Portal.
 
Well neither did the Gears of War trailer or the Halo 3 ones and they were still well received. I duno, I don't think you need to show the game to get attention.

That's kind of a different bag considering that, whilst not showing any gameplay, the GOW and Halo trailers actually showed something to do with the game itself. :p This whole meteor thing is just... what?
 
It's not meant to be a real advertisement it's just something Valve have been playing around with.
 
It's not meant to be a real advertisement it's just something Valve have been playing around with.
You mean, with us...
Oh well, they made a fantastic package with absolutely fantastic games. Although I wish they had spent some more on PR because, when will it be the next time we see such offer?
 
That's kind of a different bag considering that, whilst not showing any gameplay, the GOW and Halo trailers actually showed something to do with the game itself. :p This whole meteor thing is just... what?

well it has crates :hmph:

haha but yeah, your right I guess.
 
If that would've been the Halo 3 box I wouldn't have been surprised.

Meet the Demoman, on air, now, please.
 
I agree with Bad^Hat, that the Orange Box art is meh. If I didn't know what's inside, I'd think it's some cheap game, whose devs didn't give much damn about.
 
Words cannot describe how badly that advert conveys what the Orange Box is. Valve are obviously relying on internet advertising and word of mouth to sell the boxes, because that POS won't. They've gotta be pretty frikkin cocky to throw their time and money away on ill communication like this.

WTF was Lombardi thinking?

[Edit]
It's not meant to be a real advertisement it's just something Valve have been playing around with.
I assume they're testing technology then, otherwise it's still a waste of money.
 
That was ****ing awful.

I bought the game anyway.
 
Some commercials use this same type of off the wall marketing of their product. I guess the point is by not really showing exactly what your product is and just giving the name "Orange Box" it in theory will spark peoples interest and they search on the net to find out what it is and say woah I have to have this! As to it working who knows, I think this commercial caters more to people outside the half-life community. Personally I could care less, I did not need any commercial to sell me ;)
 
After all, we're talking about the same people who ok'd this (the art I mean)
If I had a boxless content delivery system and my alternative, lower financial yield retail publisher was asking to put my product in a box like that, I'd ok it.

The advert wasn't gripping in the least. Being abstract is fine, but when the onscreen message is basically 'somethings coming to earth... it's coming... it's coming.... it's coming.... it's coming.... it's STILL coming... oh, it's breaking up and it's still coming, it's still coming... oh it's here!', you're rather wasting valuable advertising time. Could have been 10 seconds long as still made as much sense. Could have put 20 seconds of genuinely worthwhile content afterwards too.
 
That "commercial" wasn't really well done, as most people have said. The Orange Box is supposed to be the best deal in gaming history, bursting at the seams with content. However, not showcasing any actual content is a mistake.

You almost need 3 seperate commercials running on TV.
- One 20 second spot for the Half-Life 2 games,
- One 20 second spot for Portal, and
- One 20 second spot for Team Fortress Two
My version would start with a shot of the Orange Box itself (the actual box art), then have the whole thing fade to a silhouette except for the image of the game that is being advertised (Gordon, Portal's stick figure, or the Heavy). Then show some footage with some music from that game's soundtrack. Finally, show the title of the game that was just advertised, followed by a return to the image of the Orange Box.

Sure that way is really generic, but it actually advertises why one would want to buy the thing.
 
jesus christ valve make such crap trailers

stop preaching to the choir, we are already going to buy/already have bought it, get new people!!!

they really aren't very good at getting people to play their games in general, just look at the steam stats, at the best of times there is still a 3:1 ratio of CS to CS:S players. while many of them will be in developing countries where PCs can't handle the next gen technology, lots of them are people with PCs good enough to play but valve just hasn't convinced them to do so. at current rates there will still be more people playing CS than CS:S in 10 years time...
 
This is as generic as it can get, the whole commercial could have been for ANY other product on earth, and all they'd have to do is change the final few frames where they show the orange box.

This commercial could've been for curling irons... it would've made as much sense.
 
That "commercial" wasn't really well done, as most people have said. The Orange Box is supposed to be the best deal in gaming history, bursting at the seams with content. However, not showcasing any actual content is a mistake.

You almost need 3 seperate commercials running on TV.
- One 20 second spot for the Half-Life 2 games,
- One 20 second spot for Portal, and
- One 20 second spot for Team Fortress Two
My version would start with a shot of the Orange Box itself (the actual box art), then have the whole thing fade to a silhouette except for the image of the game that is being advertised (Gordon, Portal's stick figure, or the Heavy). Then show some footage with some music from that game's soundtrack. Finally, show the title of the game that was just advertised, followed by a return to the image of the Orange Box.

Sure that way is really generic, but it actually advertises why one would want to buy the thing.

On second thought, I will have gone like..:
Show orange box and then break the box to make it look like it contains 5 boxes for each game within it. Then squeeze everything again in the orange box and note it's a single box price. Then show 5 second clips of HL series('Best game ever' title), Portal(another comment from a preview that sells) and then TF 2(again with a comment that draws attention).

Result, you advertise your main weapons:
1. excellent price for 5-games pack.
2. the prizes and expectations these games have been awarded.
3. 5 clips of the best footage will speak for itself, why.
 
honestly, valve sucks at advertising as much as it rules in making games.
 
honestly, valve sucks at advertising as much as it rules in making games.
I'm still pretty impressed at how popular they've managed to make The Orange Box on the 360. I never thought Valve would be able to make any sort of effective move into the console market. The Orange Box has the highest standing 360 Metacritic rating, ever. Every time I start to doubt them, they impress :)
 
Well, at least the EP3 trailers will be better.

Hopefully they will.
 
That advert was rubbish. It could've been for absolutely anything. And even then it would still be rubbish.
It's really a shame because it wouldn't be all that difficult to put together a good advert or trailer for it.

On the other hand, I already have the OB and couldn't care less what the ad's like. HAH!

EDIT: Incidentally, a CGI advert of the game would've been rubbish as well. They're all good-looking games - show off what you've done, for God's sake.
 
i somehow like it... :)
well done trailer but as many others have said it doesn't represent the games any how... :hmph:
 
EDIT: Incidentally, a CGI advert of the game would've been rubbish as well. They're all good-looking games - show off what you've done, for God's sake.
Best of both worlds: a machinima using Source. They've already shown how good they are at it, and how good it can look with the Meet the Demoman/Solider etc movies. Hell, just use those and I'd have been sold, had I never heard of it.

It's just mystifying how they could've seen this as a good representation of their product. Disregarding that it has no relevance to the game(s) whatsoever, all we're shown is the ****ing box-art. Which, in addition to being crap, doesn't even really tell you what's in the box. Come on! It's the best deal in the goddamn history of gaming, so let's show the folks what they're paying for, eh Valve?

As to people saying they may have done a rush-job due to Steam sales being more profitable for them - that would be extremely ignorant on Valve's part were it the case. Not least of all because not everybody has Steam, but also because this is the product they were obviously hoping to draw in newcomers to the series with. It has all the games in there for people who don't own them (and at bargain price), and it's being released on all the consoles for people who can't play it on PC. All the pieces are in place for this to be their magnum opus, so what reason not to pimp it up a bit more?
 
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