Hello,

Currently i think about creating a game with unity. But this project is to big for a single person, so I thought about showing my project on kickstarter. My question is, should i make a trailer first? At first i think of a trailer that shows what the game is going to be, like a little „movie“ or „teaser“ made with blender (CGI). Second I thougt about to show some gameplay, but i think this option would be not as good as a trailer which is representing the game as it should be. 

Pc games and even some Boardgames on Kickstarter have awesome CGI trailers.  They raised good money with these CGI trailers to finance their project.  My game is going to be a 3D simulation game and it will have lots of content. That‘s why i personally think a CGI trailer would be better and „easier“.
 

I‘m from germany, we don‘t have game designer courses to study unfortunately. 

That‘s why i ask this question here.

So, what would you recommend?

Thanks for helpful answers.

I am also interested in the answere as most people here write that they make a small prototype and test if the game is any fun. When -- after like 10 tries -- they find a fun gameplay, they may add some art. Then record a game and replay with graphics settings on max.

A gorgeous CG trailer can convince people to pay for a game that doesn't exist, but a gameplay prototype actually lets you determine whether the game is viable and/or fun to play.

If you can only have the time/money to do one of those two things, the gameplay prototype reduces your risk substantially, where the trailer doesn't.

For some reason, this question reminds me of Anthem :-).

I think if you make trailers before having a clear direction, it might set you into the wrong path. You could ended up making a good looking trailers but it contradict to the actual game play in every single way. That's certainly not good to your audience. I think coming up with the gameplay helps you see the path you're going with, and that makes the better trailer IMHO.

Of course nowadays you'd need a good looking trailer to attract investors, but as I've seen some suggestions, looks like veteran looks more at the actual gameplay than trailers anyway.

Just my two cents