American Box Art Sucks

[Falseprophet]

idk, but for some reason, I can't get over the brilliance of this cover

it's just, genius

like Spoony said: "it's like, how much more black could it be?
and the answer is none

nonemoreblack"

It worked for AC/DC, Metallica, and Spinal Tap, so why not?

But to be fair, by that point the Ultima was such an established brand you probably could have written "Ultima VII" in crayon on a piece of tissue paper and people would have bought it.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Because America is all about identifying with the main character- becoming the main character, so that's what we want to see on our box art. Admittedly, not always, but mostly. And we can't identify with a character (or characters) if we don't know what they look like.

There may be some truth to this, but I blame "art" schools in this country for teaching this formulaic shite.

I actually liked the stark red-and-white cover for Dragon Age: Origins, but gawd you should have heard the whining.

 

[JMeganSnow]

The thing about America is that it is fucking huge.

When they brought over the Office, they had to change quite a bit about it before it would be palatable?not to An American Audience, but to an incredibly massive and varied one. Lowest Common Denominator doesn't mean that we're a pack of idiots, it means that we're a nation that's so loosely connected, there's very little that we can all legitimately enjoy.

Design by Committee happens so often here because we usually Enjoy by Committee, too.

That's changing, it should be noted. Inception, Mad Men, Even Kanye West. The vision of a single auteur seen through from beginning to end is coming out more quality, and getting the critical recognition and commercial success we hope for it.

As for why we hate the French, it's partly that we're jealous of their cheap wine and delicious bread, and partly because they take every chance they can to just up and quit working, and that looks too much like laziness to be ignored.

Lol, I salute you.

 

[jack583]

becuase in america being different is almost a crime.
the companies that sell games in america beleive that sex, guns, (for games that adults and teenagers will buy) and cute (kids games) are the only kind of games that will ever be sold to anyone. so they use that to sell games.
but not everyone looks for those things in games.
but hey! it's america! let's drug and/or brainwash those freaks so they become the kind of people we market games to!

i need to get out of here ASAP!!!

 

[Dastardly]

Extra Punctuation: American Box Art Sucks

Why does America hate French videogame developers?

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1. Character-focused art. This was mentioned above.

2. Notice how the art closely resembles movie posters. Notice how movie posters feature the stars--not so much the characters, but the stars. Usually, it's a contract thing. Regardless, it means the poster is primarily faces 90% of the time. As games have grown to more closely resemble movies, is it any wonder they'd have similar ideas regarding graphic design?

3. Take a moment to consider that different cultures worldwide have different aesthetic values. Even different Western nations. Perhaps a section of American people find the original box art just as uninformative, boring, or jumbled as you find this one. Compare Chinese folk music to American folk music to Native-American folk music... they sound nothing alike, and each culture doesn't really care for the others' preferences.

4. Everything goes through localization when it crosses borders. Stuff we export does the same--and we export a hell of a lot more entertainment than we import, all told. The stuff we do import, though, tends to be pretty high profile. This creates an appearance bias--it looks like we do this more often, when it's simply not the case.

 

[teh_Canape]

It worked for AC/DC, Metallica, and Spinal Tap, so why not?

But to be fair, by that point the Ultima was such an established brand you probably could have written "Ultima VII" in crayon on a piece of tissue paper and people would have bought it.

yeah well, you know, I like to compare this with the Godzilla 2000 advertising, you know, the one that was just a poster that said "his *body part* is as *comparison* as *usually a big object*

 

[heamrh]

i blame Star Wars for making heads cool

 

[cefm]

Phalanx probably takes the cake. Bad from both perspectives in that it says nothing about the game and nothing about the main character.

 

[geizr]

Because America is all about identifying with the main character- becoming the main character, so that's what we want to see on our box art. Admittedly, not always, but mostly. And we can't identify with a character (or characters) if we don't know what they look like.

There may be some truth to this, but I blame "art" schools in this country for teaching this formulaic shite.

I actually liked the stark red-and-white cover for Dragon Age: Origins, but gawd you should have heard the whining.

I've said it quite often on the Escapist, any trained monkey can create a detailed, pretty picture. But, to create art takes something much more.

 

[Mzullos5]

Personally, I place the blame partly on Modern Art and partly on stubborn young artist who feel they need to prove themselves instead of remembering the golden rule, "If it ain't broke don't fix it." I don't know who keeps pushing this, but I agree it's unnecessary.

On a side note, Yahtzee the American bashing is kinda getting old. I'm not offended, (really I'm not the thing with the sea of migrant workers in the Minecraft review made laugh) it's just that is bin done and most people already know the level of dignity America currently has.

 

[lozfoe444]

Hell, have you seen what we did to Kirby?

 

[Ashcrexl]

japanese cover art is terrible. FAR too minimalistic to the point where it does NOT catch your eye. pal version game art definitely have the best idea. and yeah, fuck US cover art.

 

[antidonkey]

What is this......the 80s?

With the internet and reviews so readily available, who pays attention to box art anymore?
All i ever do is give it a passing glance. At most, I'll pay attention to a picture online so I know what to look for in the store.

 

[Mcface]

You should have brought up resident evil 4 boxart.

here is the pal version:

It's very stylise and a litte scary too.

Now here is the american:

So generic. Nothing about this cover is good. It's so damn bland.

American box art is just more descriptive of the game.
So if you are browsing the store, you see both of these game cases, knowing nothing about the game, you are more likely to get a better idea of what the game is from it.

It's not a creepy dark game where you are in a empty desolate place like the top cover suggests, you are in a village packed with zombies carrying chainsaws, like the bottom.

 

[Comando96]

American box art is VERY VERY self explanatory and that is all that is required. They don't go for looks. Businessman in suits who look like sausages decide that the best way to market their game is to aim for the largest market... the moronic one. They need to target the most people so they make it self explanatory. "This is a zombie game, buy it... you know you want to fight zombies wielding chainsaws ". If they went with the alternative then they wouldn't fucking sell as people think "whats that... there's black and red... meh, buy COD instead".


The rest of civilized humanity thinks above that ¬.¬
The people games are sold to like to inquire into different games and good, only semi-explanatory box art will create inquiry and often they will look up the game.

You can't blame anyone for the terrible box art apart from the people bloody buying the stuff as they create the demand.

------------

Oh Yahtzee, I see you have been checking out Lisa Foiles
Whats next week? How Disney have began to abandon Micky Mouse games games

 

[Huffman_D]

Because how am i, in america, supposed to fight this. importing is expensive just for good cover art. and i'm not NOT gonna buy heavy rain just because it has shitty box art.

american localisation departments are dumb as shit... what are you gonna do.

not all box art is terrible here. Assassin's creed is generally pretty neat, as well as mario galaxies. but yeah most third party developers from japan generally give us shitty box art. probably cause they hate us.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Clearly it's because of Microsoft's position in the gaming industry, and we know what they think of minimalism:


Let's hope Apple puts out a console next generation.

i pray to god that does not happen. ever. i dont care for microsoft but apple can gtfo of gaming.

OT: hmm way to generalize american public with the people who actually make the box art.

honestly i dont care for it at all, it looks bland as hell, but at the same time, i don't buy a game for the box art, i buy it for the game itself, so i tend to not care really.

 

[Baldr]

I'm trying to remember... but I don't think I bought a game based on cover art, they could put a big pile of poo(probably the smell too) and if it is a good enough game, I would still buy it.

 

[hipster666]

I've played a few of the games mentioned in the article and can concur that my initial interest always came from the cool box art we got in the UK. Looking at the US version EVERYTHING feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. I get the argument about wanting to identify with the main character, but isn't that what the game's for? A fatal mistake made by many games in the day was to have cool front cover art then put in actual gameplay screenshots on the back instantly telling you how little work had been put into the game. The American front art has the same sort of feel, like the job was passed to a petulent ad exec who wanted to do something more interesting so they just do the same formula bull-hockey every bleedin' time!

Some of the best games introduce you to lead characters as the story progresses. I really don't need to see the ENTIRE cast on the front of the box. Then again they do the same BS with movie trailers and TV show intros. Look at House for a great, emotive and minimalistic intro and then look at "insert name of cop show here" for exactly how irritating they can be.

 

[jokulhaups]

In America only artistically bankrupt retards are allowed to do our boxart for video games. It's sad but true.

Otherwise we could just blame the lowest common denominator focus groups that the aforementioned retards rely on for their ideas.

-Snobby American