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The Misleading World of Atari 2600 Box Art
Buffalo55 writes "These days, you don't have to worry about misleading box art, thanks to sophisticated video game graphics. In the 70s and 80s, though, companies tried to grab a consumer's attention with fancy artwork that bore no resemblance to the actual game. Atari, in particular, was one of the biggest offenders, particularly with its 2600 console."
In the 70s and 80s, though, companies tried to grab a consumer's attention with fancy artwork that bore no resemblance to the actual game.
You mean your box didn't have pages of perforated LSD blotters in the back of the manual? You got fleeced.
My work here is dung.
I never owned an Atari 2600, but I remember the same phenomenon on the C64. Box art was usually colourful and cartoony. Very few games (at least until you got to the tail end of the C64's popular life span, when you had games like the Creatures series) could come even close to living up to this. It was a good lesson at an early age that you should never take promotional material at face value.
I also remember the loading screens you'd get on the C64 while loading the game from tape (a process which would take several minutes and often fail before the end). These were generally just as "dishonest", though they were at least limited by the display resolution. In fact, worse than that, I remember one particular game where the box description actually told outright lies. It was a top-down racer (think Super Sprint) where the box text advertised weapons, oil-slicks etc, none of which were actually present in the game. I later found out that this was a semi-infamous title (in the UK at least); a sort of 1980s equivalent to Big Rigs Over the Road Racing.
Mind you, misleading box-art continued for quite a lot longer. X-Wing was a fantastic game, but I do remember being a little disappointed by the contrast between the movie-quality box art and the slightly sparse polygon graphics in game. That said, if I remember correctly, some editions of the first two Wing Commander games actually used screenshots for their front-cover art (or can somebody correct me on this - the screenshots may have been "touched up"?).
Even today, it still goes on to some extent. Ok, the differences are probably less pronounced. Box-art still tends to save screenshots for the back cover, but this is usually clearly for stylistic reasons (in fact, the trend seems to be towards box art that is simpler and sparser than a screenshot would have been). But we still get plenty of cases of "touched up" trailers, pre-rendered cutscenes shown at conferences with the implication that they're game-play footage and so on.
You know how many sugar laden pitchers of Kool-Aid I drank waiting for a massive jolly anthropomorphic red pitcher to burst through the side of my house?
And all I ever got was diabetes. Misleading advertising indeed.
My work here is dung.
Mostly through concept art and cinematics presented as teasers to the customers, allowing them to erroneously believe this will be actual gameplay.
I think it was more funny to pick up C64 games and see the words "actual C64 screenshot" during the late 80s when some game companies would put the Amiga screenshots on C64 boxes. I still see people referencing this phenomenon as a joke these days.
I don't know. I really liked the box art. I think it helped make the game more than just the blocky pixels you saw on the screen.
Is it just me, or do you hate it when people say "Is it just me..."?
This sort of thing was common even through the early 90s for computer games. People understood that the graphical level on the boxes wasn't anywhere near the level of the games. It is misleading to call this sort of thing misleading.
If you remember video card boxes in the 90s, they always seemed to be starving for metaphors for faster speed. First a hot rod, then a plane, then a space ship. They finally just ended up putting some Aboriginy guy on the cover. I didn't know they ran that fast.
Remember that game The Black Hole? Based on the Disney movie? They had the goatse guy on the cover. I remember starting the game up and thinking "Hey, where are the hands?"
Maybe I imagined that.
Trolling is a art,
Do you think gamers 30 years ago expected photorealistic games? If the game was well written, the screens became more than just a smattering of blocky pixels, in the same way that a cardboard box could become an impenetrable castle.
I love modern technology, but it seems to be feeding a growing segment of the population with no desire for creativity or imagination. Read a book, people!
</getoffmylawn>
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
That artists that created the box art were often working several months in advance of the game being finalized. That pretty much means that they had the conceptual drawings by someone that were given to the developer and computer artists rather than an actual game.
So they had no idea what the game might look like. The programming wasn't done yet.
As someone that worked on a couple of 2600 games that were released under the Parker Brothers label, I can assure you that the boxes were done long before the code was completed. And the box production people were simply not interested in looking at what had been completed. We were in different parts of the country.
Incredible as it might seem, this is how software publishing works. The manual get done before the code is done. The artwork is conceptual because it has a significantly longer lead time. Marketing materials are approved and printed weeks before the gold master CD is burned. Everyone has a schedule and deadlines and stuff has to be done pretty much the way it was planned or it looks like something that was put together by a couple of high school kids after school.
Sure, it would be nice if everything could wait for the highly flexible and iterative development process to complete before committing to graphics for advertising. Except you would miss the big presentation at the trade show and nothing would get sold to the distributors, meaning nothing gets sold to the retailers. So everyone gets to go home and the furniture gets auctioned off along with the computers, phones and pretty posters on the walls. Yup, been there and done that as well for some people that didn't understand how the process works.
Even better would be to use the Coral Cache, as the server is struggling.
Part one
http://www.rundlc.com.nyud.net/news/the-misleading-world-of-atari-2600-box-art-xbox-live/
Part two
http://www.rundlc.com.nyud.net/news/the-misleading-world-of-atari-box-art-part-two-xbox-live/
Anyone remember the 8-bit game 'Game Over'? Now that was misleading, even though they mimicked the box 'art' in the title screen. Gained notoriety for being the first box art needing to be withdrawn and redone (well, in the UK at least - not sure about anywhere else).
Here's the game in question. Look at it, then click the title image. Yep, that's what you think it is. Then click on the gameplay images bottom-left. Err....hmm.
Cheers,
Ian
I remember buying Ikari Warriors for the PC, way back in the day. The box had killer screenshots... the game looked exactly like the arcade game!
I loaded it up, and was met with horrific 4-color (white/black/cyan/magenta) graphics.
http://www.giantbomb.com/ikari-warriors/61-1619/all-images/52-164216/1029683900_00/51-803378/
When I looked more closely at the box, it had small print that said something like "Arcade-version images shown. PC images may be different", or something to that effect.
I was pissed. :(
You know I have the same thing when I go to a restaurant. The picture of the burger looks oh so good but when I get it, it's just a smushed crap sandwich in a wrapper.
If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
Back then, you filled in the missing content with your imagination. These days, nobody has one anymore. Games (and movies) have to spell out every little detail, leaving nothing to the imagination. Remember seeing the Balrog on film? Was that what you imagined it to look like when you read the book? Wasn't what I had pictured, but I can't read the book now without seeing it the way it was depicted in the movie. Kinda sad, in a way.
Read a book, people!
Books are even worse :
You got a nice cover with a pretty picture, but once you open it, there's nothing else than lots of tiny letters everywhere !
That's definitely misleading !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
And the cap gun you bought at the toy store didn't shoot real bullets. Before the age of computer photorealism, there was imagination.
To be fair, with 80's and 90's box art, we knew the graphics would look absolutely nothing like the cover, so it wasn't really dishonest.
It had a color picture on the cover.
Yet inside there were just black letters on white pages bearing no resemblance to the scantily clad lady on the cover.
Atari? Try Infocom, or any of the other less established companies that produced text adventures into the early 90s.
Which isn't to say that I take exception with this practice; on the contrary, it's an example of why box art needn't accurately represent the contents. The art was simply something to admire, like the dust sleeve of a sci-fi novel. In some cases it added to the overall effect of the game; in others it added to the mystery. And back in the age of a prepubescent internet, genres were less rigid and reviews of a given title could be much harder to come by, so each new game purchase was almost always a mystery.
Of course, there was also *zero* expectation that a game would resemble the cover art back then. Everyone knew this and for the most part nobody cared. These days, a CG scene on a box (or TV commercial) could reasonably be construed to represent the game content, and a variance between the two could therefore be seen as misleading, or worse.
Still, I've always been told that you can't judge a book by its cover, and packaged software, while typically (though not always) sold on a medium other than book/paper, was no exception. That's was as true back then as it is today.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
"Everyone knows" is the phrase tossed around when people comment on how an actor or actress looks in a photo shoot or on a movie poster. Kiera Knightley has been photoshopped more than once and commented on it, http://www.ministry-of-information.co.uk/blog1/keiramanip.htm They like to endow her with a breast size nature didn't and one she won't use surgery to obtain. From presenting perfect complexions to lightening the skin of black female celebrities; especially Beyonce; we are bombarded by what marketers perceive as the perfect image.
Technology caught up with games, yet I have found that some of the games that strive for the most in realism sometimes look more fake as one bad effect can blow the entire presentation.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I clearly remember looking at it and knowing full well it was false, but that I could tell that it was attracting me to pick up the box and want it. I remember feeling tricked, and wondering what the actual game would be.
Could you just turn the box over? Almost all my games (which were for the Acorn Archimedes, and published around 1988-1994) have a nice picture on the front, and actual screenshots on the back.
This sort of thing was common even through the early 90s for computer games. People understood that the graphical level on the boxes wasn't anywhere near the level of the games. It is misleading to call this sort of thing misleading.
Gamers understood, but the deception wasn't aimed at them. As a child, I remember being gifted crappy games quite a few times because the non-gamer adults thought I'd like it based on what was on the box art. "This looks really cool, I'll bet my son, nephew, grandson, will like it!"
The parents are the one with the money, so they were the ones that needed to fooled.
As to the box artwork: I remember programmers commenting on the nice box artwork, but there was never any mention about how it didn't match the game. Like someone else said, it was like looking at a cover of a science fiction book, knowing that the contents were probably very different.
To put things into perspective: Back in those days pinball machines were still popular and people expectations of computer games were pretty realistic, e.g. rather low. The IBM AT and XT had just come out, and were targeted at businesses and considered too expensive for the normal household. Graphical user interfaces only existed in research labs and universities. Coin operated video games had much better (and much more expensive) hardware, as compared to the home versions. The home systems had to be less sophisticated, otherwise they would have been too expensive for their target market.
I used to program these things and remember late night sessions pouring over hex dumps trying to recover a byte or two. The initial programming was done in 6502 assembler (to keep the cost down the CPU packed in a 28-pin DIP, which allowed for all sorts of tricks for saving bytes by addressing memory in unconventional ways). The last few weeks of the programming was typically done in hex, looking for opcode sequences that could be used as data. E.g. we spent our time hand optimizing the hex code. Sometimes we found enough space to put in a new feature or two.
Now nearly 30 years later I can still remember some of the hex code a few of the 6502 instructions. 4C is JMP, A9 is LDA, etc.
And by the way, we considered C a high level language back then.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
How many of you actually grew UP during that era? I'm willing to bet very few. Why? Because if you did, you'd know that THE BACK OF THE BOX HAD THE ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS. Want to know what the game looked like for reals? Flip the damn box over and use your damn eyes. Simple isn't it? See in the old days we used our hands to do things like that.
OHH WAH you mean the cover of "Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar" doesn't have a high resolution guy in a robe conjuring up a tidal wave? Sheesh. The authors of this nonsense need to get a life.
See back then, the actual box art was often something to be admired. The above mentioned "Quest of the Avatar" was painted by Denis Loubet, who made some of the best cover art for any game, bar none. There were many games that had fantastic cover art. Do you think any of us were fooled into thinking that this is what the game actually looked like? I used to KEEP the boxes around and mount them on the wall of my computer room (haw haw he said computer room he so old!).
The whole article is just a sarcastic "haw haw look how primitive old consoles were, xbox is so cools!" my-dick-is-bigger fest.
Someone who's in marketing recently told me this story, which demonstrates the most important aspect of marketing: target audience selection. Disclaimer, before I continue: marketeers don't usually go this far.
You pick a random stock. You then send a letter to 4000 people saying this stock will rise, and a letter to 4000 other people saying it will fall. Wait two days, see what it does. Divide the 4000 people who got the right prediction into two groups of 2000.
Pick a new random stock. Tell 2000 people it'll rise, tell the other 2000 it'll fall. Wait two days, see what it does, repeat with two groups of 1000.
You now have 1000 people who have received three consecutive correct predictions from you. Remind them how much they could have made if they followed your advice in the last week, then start charging them for stock market advice.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
I'm glad you were good enough to mention the artists, since it seems they never get the recognition they deserve. Some of the artwork they produced for Atari is exceptional. Unfortunately, much of this work has disappeared, either thrown away or stolen by people at Atari. Among the creators of the "Atari look":
Cliff Spohn is a talented and sought after portraitist of real people, sports figures in particular.
http://www.artworkoriginals.com/JAAAAAOU.htm
Steve Hendricks also usually focused on portraiture and has created some of the most evocative and distinctive work to come out of Atari.
http://www.sundancecreative.com/
Rick Guidice often worked with NASA doing space illustration.
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/view/search?q=Guidice&search=Search
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rick_Guidice
http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/advart.html
James Kelly is not just an artist, he was one of Atari's art directors for many years.
http://www.orangecountyfineart.com/kelly.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/aditaciobanu/james-kelly-painting-nx-power-lite-presentation
Bob Flemate is someone I unfortunately haven't found much information on. He worked on Atari arcade cabinets and created the marvelous Atari 400/800 Space Invaders cover art.
http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/gamephemera_space_invaders_atari_400_800
George Opperman was one of Atari's first artists and art director, and is notable for designing the original, iconic, and difficult to reproduce Atari "fuji" logo. The logo is meant to resemble the letter "A" and represents two players facing each other with the Pong "net" between them.
http://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=person&name=George+Opperman
http://www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar/cabinets.html
Hiro Kimura has had the honor of creating three US postage stamps.
https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10052&productId=10001795&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=&parent_category_rn=10000003&categoryId=10000028&top_category=10000003
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/images/flagcity.jpg
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/images/99chalk.jpg
Warren Chang was a staff artist at Atari for two years, starting in 1981. His beautiful work can be described as classical realism and has garnered several awards.
http://warrenchang.com/
+0 Meh
Panic, maker of (excellent) Mac software has some Atari 2600 boxes for their current lineup of products.
Pretty cool if you ask me.
We thought the box covers were lame, and the games were totally cool.
I don't recall seeing any progress bars on the box for WoW.
Here's an anecdote to support your assertion:
I once met a fellow at a party who told me that when he was a small child his mother was single and they had to bounce around from cheap motel to cheaper motels. For him, the Atari 2600 game, Breakout, was pure escapism. He had read every bit of text on the box about how the paddle you control is really a space ship and it is trying to destroy a cosmic cloud barrier that has trapped the ship with all its passengers. This fellow even had constructed a space helmet out of cardboard which he would wear while playing the game. He would often stay up late at night playing and so his mother could sleep in their small hotel room, he would drape a blanket over the television and himself to block the glow.
The story he told me climaxes when he said one night the fire department came banging on their motel room door. The whole building was being evacuated. The boy, his mother, and the other residents were instructed to stand on the other side of the street opposite the motel. A landslide had weakened the foundation of the building. As they stood out there in the night, they watched as the motel slid down a cliff into the ocean. The boy cried as he watched, in his words, "his whole life being destroyed in that landslide." He meant that his Atari 2600 with Breakout had been lost.
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