Straight answers on game marketing production.
The questions clients actually ask before they brief us: what a trailer involves, what drives its cost, what goes into a creator kit or a custom console, and when you need one partner instead of five. Written by the people who do the work.
What is a video game marketing agency?
A video game marketing agency plans and produces the work that takes a game to market: positioning and messaging, trailers and key art, community and influencer programmes, storefront assets, paid and social creative, and launch events.
In practice the category covers three kinds of firm that get confused with each other. Public-relations agencies own press relationships and coverage. Media agencies buy and optimise paid placement. Creative production agencies make the assets and experiences themselves.
TAKEOFF is the third kind, with in-house capability in video, art, physical fabrication and brand partnerships. See TAKEOFF Gaming.
How is a game trailer produced?
Six stages, in order. Cherry on Top, the trailer studio inside TAKEOFF, runs all six in-house.
- Brief and strategy. What the trailer has to prove, and where it will run.
- Script and edit structure. The beat map, fixed before any footage is cut.
- Asset acquisition. Either gameplay capture, played and recorded to direction, often with debug cameras and custom builds, or 3D and cinematic production in an engine such as Unreal.
- Edit, VFX and motion design. The cut, plus compositing, UI, titles and legal text.
- Sound. Design, mix, and music either licensed or composed.
- Localisation and delivery. Every language version and every platform cut: store pages, broadcast, social aspect ratios, and any regulatory submission such as ARPP in France.
What drives the cost of a game trailer?
Six variables account for most of the gap between two quotes for what sounds like the same job.
Capture or 3D. Cinematic production carries modelling, animation and render time that gameplay capture does not.
Runtime. A 30-second spot and a two-minute launch trailer are different builds, not the same build trimmed.
VFX and motion design volume. Every composited shot and every animated title is time.
Music. Licensed or composed, and for which territories and terms.
Language versions. Each one carries its own mix, subtitle pass and QC.
Deliverables. Store pages, broadcast and each social aspect ratio are separate masters.
TAKEOFF quotes per project from a brief rather than from a rate card. Send us the brief.
Reveal trailer, launch trailer, TV spot: what is the difference?
A reveal trailer introduces a game the audience has not seen, so it usually leans on cinematic production and withholds detail. The Hot Wheels Infinite Rush reveal was built entirely in Unreal Engine 5 for exactly that reason.
A launch trailer converts existing awareness. It shows more of the real game, carries the release date and platform lockups, and is cut to be legible at low volume on a feed.
A TV spot is built to a broadcaster's duration and clearance rules, in some markets a formal submission such as ARPP in France, and is almost always a separate edit rather than a shortened trailer. See the Hogwarts Legacy Switch spot.
What is a gaming influencer kit?
An influencer kit, also called a creator kit, seeding kit or press kit, is a physical package sent to creators and journalists ahead of a launch. A good one is not merchandise in a box. It is a designed unboxing experience that gives the creator something to react to on camera.
The Alan Wake 2 kits TAKEOFF produced for Remedy Entertainment were built as FBI case files containing evidence and hidden clues, so opening the kit was itself a piece of the game's narrative.
Kits are usually produced in runs of twenty to a few hundred. The work covers concept, industrial design, prototyping, sourcing, assembly and worldwide fulfilment.
How are custom consoles and controllers made?
Concept sketch, 3D modelling, teardown of the donor hardware, machining or 3D printing of new shells and parts, painting and finishing, reassembly and functional testing, then packaging, and for giveaway campaigns, numbering and certification.
Volumes range from a single hero piece for press photography to several hundred units for a creator or competition programme. TAKEOFF has delivered at both ends: one Barbie DreamHouse Xbox Series S, and 200 controllers for the Xbox × French Football Federation reveal at the Stade de France.
The work sits across TAKEOFF Gaming and L’Atelier, depending on whether the run is a campaign volume or a single engineered piece.
What does an esports trophy or statue project involve?
Concept and 3D modelling, then material choice, printing or moulding, assembly, hand painting and finishing. Anything destined for a public floor also needs structural engineering, and anything that tours has to be designed to disassemble, crate and reassemble on site.
For Ubisoft's Six Invitational 2025, L’Atelier built a three-metre statue of the operator Sledge, 3D-printed in-house and hand-painted in Montréal, then shipped to Boston. For the Dead by Daylight tenth anniversary, the same studio built a 2.35-metre walk-in statue of The Entity's claws that the public could stand inside.
Do I need one agency or several for a launch?
Most launches involve at least three kinds of partner: press relations, media buying, and creative production. Those are genuinely different businesses and it is normal to hold them separately.
What is worth consolidating is the production side. The trailer, the key art, the creator kit and the event installation all derive from the same creative idea, and every handover between specialist vendors is a chance for that idea to weaken.
TAKEOFF exists to hold that whole production side under one brief. It works alongside a client's PR and media agencies rather than replacing them.
Where does TAKEOFF work, and in which languages?
The Americas from the Montréal headquarters, EMEA from London and Lyon, and Asia-Pacific from Shenzhen and Singapore. Work is delivered in English, French and Mandarin.
Regional contacts are on the contact page.
Still deciding?
Read the agency guide for an honest map of the field, or go straight to the portfolio index.