I've noticed a trend where the screenshots used to advertise games are less and less informative. Not just on GOG, but everywhere. Take a couple of recent releases here for example:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/uncharted_legacy_of_thieves_collection

https://www.gog.com/en/game/stray_blade_valley_of_strays

There's no UI visible anywhere, or anything else to indicate if any of the screenshots are what you would see during actual gameplay. Is the game 1st person or fixed camera? A shooter or a puzzle game? There's no way of knowing from the screenshots alone. Uncharted includes a video which is just as useless - it looks more like a trailer for a film than a game. Maybe there actually isn't any gameplay?

Surely it would be better to show us what the gameplay is like, to give us some idea of if we want to buy it?

Speaking of worthless screenshots, have a squint over at Call to Power 2's screenshots.

But yeah, there's more than a few games on GOG that have useless beauty shots instead of interface displays.

That depends on who is viewing the screenshots and trailers.

If they are critical viewers like yourself, then you are right, the way how you suggested would be better.

However, many, possibly most, viewers are not critical viewers, so for them, showing screenshots and trailers that are actually representative of what the game is really like would be worse for the devs/publishers, not better, since those viewers' non-criticial-ness allows them to become easily fooled, and also excited by, pretty images and/or gameplay-less trailers.

Surely this only works in the short-term though? If players buy games based on pretty screenshots that they otherwise wouldn't have bought, they will eventually start to associate pretty screenshots with disappointment.

Yeah, many publishers only provide screenshots without UI, cropped or zoomed in so much that it might not even be possible to recreate this view in-game, making games that are usually played strategically with a top-down view look like third or first person action games and whatnot. I find it pretty annoying, too.

Another thing I've noticed though is that GOG doesn't always seem to have quality control regarding their screenshots and it makes the store look unprofessional and messy. Take a look at the screenshots for Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen, for example, a game that was high on the wishlist here and should have been a triumphant release, but half of the screenshots make it look rather unattractive due to the low contrast and jpg artifacts. Compare to the ones with better colors, pretty inconsistent.

I've also noticed games here and on Steam that are available in English, but the screenshots show the original Chinese, Japanese, or whatever language version even in the English language store, which might scare away customers not familiar with the original language because it makes it seem like an English translation is not included. (I'm all for original language support, but these screenshots just make it seem like whoever uploaded them just used pre-made material by the publishers or from the net and couldn't be bothered to think about the effect it has on potential customers.)

The screenshots kinda do fulfil the checklist of what people would want to see to be impressed. Obviously it displays the graphics and art style, but the scenic shots also show how diverse the game world is, perhaps convincing the consumer that the game's world has an immense scope. The explosion, jeep and grappling are there because those are things people usually associate with fun in most bombastic large-scale action games. Those screenshots, as vague as they are, somewhat work the same way tags do, just describing basic superficial observations about the game rather than going in-depth about the game's mechanics.

This is just the Uncharted screenshots though. The other game's screenshots are horrendous I thought it was a puzzle game at first.

Sadly this has been a common thing for ages, they're what's known as "Bullshots". Just make up some shallow, bombastic images, showing off a bunch of pretty or exciting things regardless of how much or how little they may represent the actual gameplay experience.

I have no idea how this became an accepted practice, but it must work on people if it's still so frequent.

I also hate trailers for games that don't show anything of the gameplay. What am I supposed to do with some pre-made cutscenes that almost have nothing to do with the gameplay, instead it tells me some story I don't yet want to know about.

It's been annoying, it's still annoying and I really doesn't make me want to buy the game -.-

I also favour actual screenshots - the kind you create by hitting the print scrn key. Photo mode stuff is fine if you want to make a desktop wallpaper or something, but it won't show you what the game looks like during gameplay. Sometimes you can't even tell the game genre from looking at them.

Cutscene trailers irritate me, and give me a lower estimation of an unknown game than I had to start with. As uninformative as bad screenshots are, they take a second to see and dismiss. Trailers though can take up to several minutes. That's several minutes of my life waiting to learn more about a game only to realize that the trailer isn't going to show me anythng, and it was all a waste of my time.

I long ago decided to ignore all advertising for games. Now, if I want to get an idea of what a game is like, I just look up a lets play.. That will give me a FAR better sense of the game than a shiny image or a cutscene trailer.

Ooh, speaking of games I rag on about too much, Starbound's screenshots are worthless. They're taken in the No UI mode which does hide how badly the UX has aged since the Netbook days.

I don't even consider buying games until they're at least a year old... or five. Brand new games are packed with bugs and flaws and problems and will take time to fix. I can wait.

Yeah, that's right!
Also what Atreyu666 and BlueMooner wrote about the trailers, these "prologues" are often not helpful concerning gameplay, graphics, perspective, atmosphere etc.


A game with absolutely NO terrible screenshots (on GOG) is Subterrain.
These shots (and trailers) were a big help for my buying decision.
(Sorry for the advertising! :P)

Fortunately, some games have reviews on YT very soon after launch and those always show gameplay as well :)