American Box Art Sucks
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Actually even the digital download services use box arts. XBL has regular box arts as the thing you see when selecting the game, Steam has at least a logo in the list and possibly a big mention of the game at the top, those act together as a kind of box art. Sure, the art isn't on a box anymore but it has the same purpose. A game that makes its main picture a regular screenshot usually looks unappealing.hawk533 said:
Huh. I never really cared for box art. I mean the game can still suck even with really good and stylistic box art. In fact isn't it worse to play a bad game with a good box art cover? I mean with a good game with bad box art cover you can rip the cover off and get some fan drawing to replace it or you can just ignore it and give it good word to mouth pr to sell the game to others. I mean when I started playing Pokemon the covers didn't sell me so much as everyone in the school playing the game. Also a lot of my games are used these days I'd be lucky to have a cover at all.
I can kinda understand what the point is and it is odd but seriously if the content is the same who cares after all this whole discussion is based on making choices with shallow discrimination.
I can kinda understand what the point is and it is odd but seriously if the content is the same who cares after all this whole discussion is based on making choices with shallow discrimination.
Cover Art is usually irrelevant to buying games as if its on the big display board in shops then its big and you heard about it, if not then you only get to see the side of the box so art is pointless..
Personally, I live minimalist art and art that has deeper meaning than to just portray or explain what something is about.. although if it has to be normal 'explaining' art then I absolutely love the semi-drawn, semi-digitalized box art of Dawn of War 2 and the box art of Wolfenstein (the modern one) wasn't bad either.
Personally, I live minimalist art and art that has deeper meaning than to just portray or explain what something is about.. although if it has to be normal 'explaining' art then I absolutely love the semi-drawn, semi-digitalized box art of Dawn of War 2 and the box art of Wolfenstein (the modern one) wasn't bad either.
I think the only alternate cover w'eve ever gotten that wasn't complete shit was for God Hand, which one could argue was an even more perfect representation of the game's content than the Japanese version (it's an extreme black and white close up of a Mad Max style thug in profile with the titular God Hand smashing into his face).
Actually, America also gets the shittiest book covers, too. Just look at the cover for the Penguin Classics edition of Lu Xun's collected fiction (a man in traditional Qing dynasty dress, complete with long queue, seen from behind), representative of everything Lu Xun hated and railed against in his writing, and compare it to the Chinese cover of his collected works which is tastefully designed and features no image other than a small photograph of the author's face positioned dead center. The same publisher's big deluxe edition of The Three Musketeers features a stick figure comic (imagine a much less funny XKCD) emblazoned across its front. If I knew who made these decisions I would do everything in my power to hurl them into the sun or, failing that, to get Lou Ferigno to do it for me.
Actually, America also gets the shittiest book covers, too. Just look at the cover for the Penguin Classics edition of Lu Xun's collected fiction (a man in traditional Qing dynasty dress, complete with long queue, seen from behind), representative of everything Lu Xun hated and railed against in his writing, and compare it to the Chinese cover of his collected works which is tastefully designed and features no image other than a small photograph of the author's face positioned dead center. The same publisher's big deluxe edition of The Three Musketeers features a stick figure comic (imagine a much less funny XKCD) emblazoned across its front. If I knew who made these decisions I would do everything in my power to hurl them into the sun or, failing that, to get Lou Ferigno to do it for me.
It seems like americans have more "aggressive" box-art and more shizzle happening on them. It´s cultural difference, perhaps box-art designers think this is more like their media and this is someone elses.
its even worse than that. since its foreign companies exporting games to the USA, the blames lies on their prejudices.Pugiron said:
American game box covers suck compared to those in other countries because the marketing execs of foreign countries believe Americans to be dumber then people of their own country. As a result they provide a "dumbed down" version for the "stupid Americans". This in no way indicates that Americans are actually stupid.
we have bad artists?
i dunno. i just buy games that appeal to me. boxart is about eye-catching, but i know what i'm getting before i enter the store. hooray internet.
i dunno. i just buy games that appeal to me. boxart is about eye-catching, but i know what i'm getting before i enter the store. hooray internet.
to me this cover just says: we got a great game, we don't need to get all fancy with our box art.Falseprophet said:It worked for AC/DC, Metallica, and Spinal Tap, so why not?teh_Canape said: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"
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.
I think an interesting thing to point out is that just because the covers were designed (presumably) to appeal to Americans, it is not always successful. Heavy Rain in particular was terrible art by American video game <a href=http://www.destructoid.com/us-heavy-rain-box-art-is-pretty-rubbish-160252.phtml>journalists. In many of the examples given by Yahtzee, one can find pages of people complaining that the American art is rubbish. The problem is that many of these games are quite good in spite of the box art and are thus purchased which I can only assume is the driving reason behind the classic trend of bad American box art. If the game sold well with terrible art, then, by some bizarre marketing logic, the art must have worked!
