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Trailer Park Group is buying Dark Burn Creative, which has more than 110 gamers making triple-A game trailers.
Started in 2014 by three brothers, Dark Burn Creative has made official trailers for games such as Apex Legends, Valorant, New World, Back 4 Blood, Sonic Origins, Lost Ark, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and many others.
Los Angeles-based Trailer Park Group is a company focused on global entertainment marketing and content production.
Dark Burn focuses on gameplay-first game trailers, as opposed to cinematic trailers. It serves some of the largest game publishers in the industry — including Electronic Arts (EA), Epic Games, Riot, and Amazon.
“Dark Burn is the best in the business at gameplay video production and their success over the past eight years is largely due to their absolute focus and commitment to perfecting their craft,” said Rick Eiserman, Trailer Park Group CEO, in a statement.
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Founded in 2014 by brothers Tanner, Chase, and Hunter Boyajian, Dark Burn now has an army of gamers working as editors, capture and cinematic artists, motion graphics artists, sound mixers, and producers. They provide clients comprehensive services spanning video campaign strategy, innovative gameplay capture, and live-action production.
“As a family-run business, we always said we wanted to stay scrappy, smart, and small. However, as our services grew larger and our team more skilled, we realized we needed to expand rapidly to keep up with the demand in what was once a niche market,” said Chase Boyajian, cofounder of Dark Burn, in a statement.
Dark Burn will retain its brand name with Tanner and Chase Boyajian continuing to lead the unit while reporting to Eiserman.
“Our passion and dedication to authentic trailer production hasn’t wavered over the past eight years and we continue to innovate and develop techniques to give gamers a genuine taste of the game before it is released,” said Tanner Boyajian, in a statement. “As gamers ourselves, we knew what the audience wanted and still wants: a feeling of what it is like to have the controller in your hands. We are a collection of eclectics who love gaming; some of us prefer a classic RTS and others the latest FPS, but we all unite around bringing authentic trailers to our audience and community.”
I asked in an email what inspired them to start the company. Tanner Boyajian said, “Fifteen years ago, games marketing was geared towards CG and Live-Action pieces to drive lore. The gameplay-focused trailer was something that gamers wanted but didn’t often get. That’s why we started Dark Burn Creative. Our passion for gameplay trailers is rooted in our desire for audiences to experience how the game genuinely looks and feels. We are dedicated to the authenticity of the developer’s vision and the in-game experience — our captured gameplay can be done in the game. We want our work to give players a taste of authentic game content in a way that creates anticipation and excitement.”
I also asked how they succeeded against the competition.
Chase Boyajian said, “Authenticity is everything – we are dedicated to the developer’s vision and bring real, in-game expertise to everything we do. From day one, our goal has been to capture the spirit of games and recreate those epic moments that players experience and share with friends. Gaming is social and it’s our job to bring the hype by highlighting these authentic experiences.”
He added, “Every game that we work on — every trailer we create — we do from a place of passion and love for the game. Our team lives and breathes games. For example, many of our team members that work on Apex will work on the game for eight hours at the office, then go home and play more. When we make a piece of marketing content for a game title it’s authentic and gameplay-focused – our team knows and understands the game inside and out.”
The acquisition of Dark Burn follows Trailer Park Group’s July launch of Mutiny, its global gaming agency, which was born out of the Group’s tremendous growth and success in the gaming space. Trailer Park Group’s companies, now including Dark Burn, collaborate to serve the world’s top gaming brands, publishers, platforms, studios, and services with ultra-engaging marketing content and experiences that drives audience and business growth.
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