Bioshock Infinite: The latest victim of the Stupid-American-Box-Art Virus.

[RedDeadFred]

Def wont buy now.

if box art quality is really so big of a deal to you that this reveal really pushed you over the age and ultimately dissuaded you from getting it...then I'll from now on see you as nothing more than a sad strange little man.....you have my pity.

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic and mocking the whining that is going on. I don't blame you. Sarcasm can be very hard to read through text. Who knows, maybe you're being sarcastic too and I have just fallen into the same trap I thought you fell into!

 

[Tallim]

Man with gun - check
Orange and blue contrast on cover - check

Yeah that's quite shockingly typical nowadays. They could have done so much with it.

 

[ABLb0y]

Think that's bad?

Wait until you see the PAL box-art for Silent Hill Homecoming and Downpour.

As in, the American ones are decipherable (Portrait of main character and brother and main character standing with an axe respectively) but the European ones? Literally incomprehensible!

 

[Burntpopcarn]

meh

 

[Panorama]

Its not really a problem, it is boring as far as i have seen, there was plenty, of interesting stuff in the to use instead.
but still not really a problem.

 

[Scrubiii]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/12/bioshock-infinite-box-art/

Here is Ken Levine's explaination of why it looks like it does.

 

[Olas]

As someone who's usually pretty picky about this sort of thing, I don't see what's wrong with it. It looks fairly well composed to me. Besides, they've already had giant monsters on the cover twice, why not switch things up.

 

[CityofTreez]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/12/bioshock-infinite-box-art/

Here is Ken Levine's explaination of why it looks like it does.

Well that was obvious from the start. Having that "generic" box art will attract the casual guy over the "super artsy" box art.

Though, I am looking forward to the alternate covers.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

nvm

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's not completely generic. It's bad, sure. It could be a lot better given what the game is about. But it's not the worst I've seen. At least it has pretty colors and the guy isn't dressed as your typical action hero holding an M14. They could do what Bioware did with ME3. They could add another cover on the other side.

 

[Vault101]

Well that was obvious from the start. Having that "generic" box art will attract the casual guy over the "super artsy" box art.

Though, I am looking forward to the alternate covers.

they are trying to reach a borad audience? HERESY!!

we don't want "bros" playing OUR games...we keep them in the COD pen where they belong!

 

[TrevHead]

Japanese Boxart

Thank god I live in the UK where many games have the Japanese cover. Although Japan does have more cartoon tits though.

Excuse my ignorance, but what game is that? It looks interesting.

It's a bullet hell shmup by CAVE called Mushihimisama HD, Japan only, atleast for the moment but you can play it's sequel Mushihimisama Futari as thats region free and rather cheap.

 

[TheCommanders]

Christ, I'm continually ashamed of how petty gamers can be. This is the reason that when there are serious complaints with genuine merit, they get ignored. Why the hell do you people care? You know why they're doing it: to sell more copies to the less informed portions of the market. Will it work? Probably. Will it in any way affect the quality of the actual game (as informed consumers you can actually find the answer to this question)? Probably not. So why the fuck would you pick slightly cliche box art as something to waste your time complaining about when all its doing is giving a good developer a few of the bucks that would otherwise go to some shit for brains executive working at EA or Activision? At least this way, those bucks have a chance of being used to... I don't know, develop good games. Jesus, gamers really need to learn to pick our battles...

 

[Your Gaffer]

The cover is fine. There is a lot of art surrounding this game that is more abstract if you are interested. These covers help sell the game, there are numbers to back it up, and a publisher has a duty to put a cover on that they think will sell the most copies possible. There are much better things to get upset at.

 

[Gamer_Fries]

This is actually the first I've heard of this "Americans make bad boxart" issue. But I can hardly give a fuck about boxart at all. Name a game from the past 5 years and I couldn't recall what was on the front. Why? Least important part of the whole package.

Yahtzee does a good article introducing the notion: [URL="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/8631-American-Box-Art-Sucks" (title,target)]American Box Art Sucks[/URL]

This goes into detail about how Japan is just a lot better at it: [URL="http://www.gamesradar.com/why-japanese-box-art-is-better/" (title,target)]Japanese Box Art Is Better[/URL]

It's all about first impressions, really. We might already know that we're getting Infinite and can learn to live with the horrible, horrible box art because we already know and love the series. But it's the newcomers that might miss out; If you knew nothing of Bioshock and saw that box art on the shelf, would you buy it?

Honestly that may be a problem for some people but I myself have never had an issue with the covers of games. The first thing I saw about Heavy Rain was it's box art and I still bought the game, glad I did to because it's pretty good game.

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

They probably could have chose a better boxart but it could change for all we know. Oh well stop yer complaining, "Don't judge a book(game) by its cover" I personally look into games before I buy them. It's not like cod has ever had a good boxart anyways. At least this has more for the eyes to feast upon.

 

[veloper]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/12/bioshock-infinite-box-art/

Here is Ken Levine's explaination of why it looks like it does.

Futile. Even fratboys aren't THAT careless with their 60 bucks and they actually do a little research before they throw away their money: they ask what their friends are playing.
This audience can be influenced by tv commercials, but nobody buys anything based on box art alone.

 

[Radoh]

Seriously?
This is still a thing people are complaining about?
Are we not already in the age of digital distribution?
Who cares what the smegging boxart looks like?

 

[MagmaMan]

As a long time fan of the Shock games (System Shock 1-2 as well as Bioshock 1-2) this game in general has annoyed me, despite the fact that I'm REALLY looking forward to it. It's just not a Shock game. Where's the dead world you have to explore feeling alone and desperate as you find audio logs that gradually allow you to piece together the back story? An amazing and still effective set-up to this day, a set-up so effect that even System Shock 1, a horribly outdated game, is still worth looking at. That's just a minor annoyance that shouldn't effect the rest of you.

What worries me is how streamlined it actually looks. Shock games always have been unique, at least until games like Doom 3 came along and copied them, but despite the amazing world this just looks like another shooter when you watch the gameplay, and this box art and the whole "must-have shooter of 2013" also worries me further. It's still going to be an amazing game I'm sure, but I don't want Shock of Duty, I want Bioshock! Ah well, hopefully it's just the gameplay we've been shown. Either way it'll be amazing, and it's not like I'm the kind of person who completely shuns shooters for being shooters, heck I got Black Ops II Hardened Edition. (as much as I love and respect games like Bioshock, alot of times I just want to relax and have fun, and I personally feel Call of Duty does that better then any other game. If it pisses you off all the time like many people you obviously aren't going in with the same attitude I am, and don't yell at me for liking a game you don't please, the fact that I have to put in this long parenthesized comment just to try and keep the CoD haters away alone should put alot of the internet to shame.)