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Judging a Game By Its Cover
1up has up a piece looking at the good and bad of gaming boxart. They cover some history of the art form, why things tend to change when they move from East to West, and some notables among the boxes of the past twenty-five-odd years. From the article: "After the American console market crashed in the early '80s, it was up to Japanese companies like Sega and Nintendo to pick up the slack. However, the cover artwork for many Japanese publishers' early games seemed to be lost in translation. The first generation of Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges were little more than enlarged screenshots showing off the main characters in all their pixelated glory. Sega Master System games were even worse: a plain grid on a barren white background, complete with a single, low-quality image." Relatedly, GameDaily is running an article on the history of game marketing, which I thought dovetailed nicely with this somewhat less serious examination of the subject.
...the boobies.
EverQuest. WoW. And countless others.
With the graphics capability of today's consoles, there really is no reason why screenshots shouldn't play a more prominent role in gamebox art.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I was really hoping this was a look at how the SCREENSHOTS often depicted on the front/back/inside flap of the box look nothing like one can get on a 3mo old gaming rig.
I want this game!
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
It may be the clouds of nostalgia, but I recall the Master System has having the best box art ever. When you walked into the store, you knew which games were for the Master System at a single glance. I dug the minimalist style, and the consistency of the box art. Each game had it's own flavor and yet the boxes could be displayed and not look tacky on your converted VHS rack.
-Buddy of DoQ
as cover art looks better, truth in advertising fades away. There is another piece of the puzzle right around the corner, the rise of Digital Distribution. fuck cover art.
A great example of a game cover being lost in translation is Ico. First lets all go look at the japanese cover of the game.
Not bad eh? Okay are you ready for the american cover? I cringe every time I see it.
Dooom
Being a youngster as I was, it was easy for me to be taken in by flashy covers that seemed to promise more than the game could ever practically deliver. Which is why I found myself liking the first-gen NES titles so much, since if the cover looked cool (despite being low res and blocky) then I could be assured that the game itself would look cool. Mario Bros and Kung Fu stood out as promising exactly what they delivered: a little plumber dude hopping around blocks and anthropomorphic mushrooms, and a kung fu guy kicking.
I wish they would have stayed with this, frankly. Would I have been as much or more likely to buy GTA if it had shown a blown-up shot of a car leaving bloody tire marks and a pile of dead hookers behind it? Yes, yes indeed.
The enemies of Democracy are
I remember that Infocom had the most awesome packaging.
Also, the article slams the packaging for the Atari 400/800 version of PacMan, but I loved that packaging when I was a child. It was very nice. The Atari games often had elaborate stories and artwork that felt like it was adding to the game in a significant way.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Article Summary:
- Not much has changed in the world of video game art over the past 20+ years.
- Game companies tune their franchises from the "likes boobies" crowd to the "likes Barney" crowd depending on demand.
And that's about it.
While I realize this is only a semi-serious article, I'm a bit baffled as to where the "consensus" they often cite comes from. I'm aware of small groups of people who obsess over these sorts of things, and you could have a consensus of them, but the majority of people (the consensus that matters), from what I can tell, really couldn't care less.
O RLY? Compare Katamari Damacy (J) box art and Katamari Damacy (U) box art. The only differences are NTSC U/C vs. NTSC J, ruby text in romaji vs. kana, and different national ratings organizations.
Thing is, who one Earth would even consider spending £30 (or whatever that translates into in Earth-Dollars) or more on a game when they can't even be bothered to look at the screenshots on the back of the box, let alone read a preview or find out how badly Penny Arcade slags it off. If that's how easily you're parted with your cash, you deserve it.
Still. This wasn't really a serious article, was it. *ahem*
Meta will eat itself
I remember thinking if the box art was too nice, the game probably was not that great (especially when the game would only show screenshots of what looked like a movie). The nice screenshots would use up more resources, and the developers did not put time into gameplay (there were exceptions of course). I can remember the day I was with my grandma and mom seeing Metroid for the NES. It was the first game I got for the Nintendo except for Super Mario Bros. that came with the system. I got home, and it was pixellated greatness from the box cover to the game!
I loved the Yars' Revenge box art, in fact I loved most of Atari and Imagic's box art for their 2600 games. Cosmic Ark comes to mind, as do the various oil paintings done for Super Breakout, Superman, Outlaw, etc. I wonder if those paintings are in a gallery somewhere? The Activision box art was much more representative of the actual games but the Atari art really stoked the imagination. I guess it had to.
Regular Meta Moderators are not more likely to get mod points.
The aspect of games that most fools place first on their judging criteria is in-game graphics, which HAS to be even more retarded than judging by a game's box art.
Look at Battlefield 2. EA didn't even fix their weapon draw bug (switching to secondary fire shows you holstering and drawing the same weapon), which has existed since BF1942.
Look at Counter-Strike: Source. People who like Source better than 1.6 don't realize how in Source you can spray violently and land headshots, not to mention their new market system for weapons, which is probably one of the stupidest things that have been implemented.
I always enjoyed looking at old game arts on covers. Some of them are weird and cheesy, but some of them are really cool.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The first real RPG I played was Ultima 3. The box art with the demon in fire was excellent. The box was solid with a nice glossy finish. The goodness didn't end on the outside. Inside the box you had a players manual, a wizard spell book, a priest spell book and the beautiful cloth map.
Denis Loubet did the cover illustrations as well as much of the artwork inside the player's manual. I think those images really helped bring the world of Ultima alive in my imagination. Which, considering the simple 8bit graphics was a good thing.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Oops, I meant Roger Dean, not Richard.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
C'mon, we all know what you need to have on a cover art. Look, think about the EverQuest cover art. Yes, there is a girl. Now, can you tell me what *else*that cover depicts?
Didn't think so. Case closed.
And even female artists agree.
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Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
... you should get an art department in the PC to touch up your screencaps, too!
"Dude, that C'Thun killshot was weak. It needs a lens flare! Get to it, graphics gnome!"
"On it, boss! Can we interest you in paying another $4,000 for a $2000 Dell?"
"Are you crazy?"
"Its got a case mod."
"Oh I'm so there!"
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Dominos Pizza published the "Noid" game. That red, alien / rabbit looking thing that use to be the Mascot for Dominos. It was released on the NES
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Of course there's always the game box reviews of Doom 3, Far Cry and Freedom Force which are LOL.