Really? You're sitting complaining about the box art? Will people whine about anything? When you get the game do you sit and play the game, or sit and stare at the box art? Get over it.
Bioshock Infinite: The latest victim of the Stupid-American-Box-Art Virus.
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Lower the confrontational attitude a bit. It's a discussion forum. We discuss things, be it great or trivial. There was a thread yesterday just about high definition pictures of fruit, for crying out loud. It's not all serious business talk here. So don't mistake "The box art sucks" for "the game will suck".Kungfu_Teddybear said:
And yeah, I appreciate some good box art. I've actually put some of the better ones together as a sort of collage.
I don't mind that box art for Bioshock Infinite, I like the burning flag and backdrop, gives a good sense of what the world will be like and, hey, at least he's not some melancholy soldier who's on fire...
Seriously, WTF BF: Bad Company 2?! Bad Company 1 had awesome box art and you... Well...
Seriously BF: BC 2, give a generic piece of box art with multiplayer profile names above shit? Was this supposed to be a subtle hint that the single player won't be as cool and original as the first ones? If so, congrats!
Seriously, WTF BF: Bad Company 2?! Bad Company 1 had awesome box art and you... Well...
Bad Company 1 -
Bad Company 2 -
Bad Company 2 -
Seriously BF: BC 2, give a generic piece of box art with multiplayer profile names above shit? Was this supposed to be a subtle hint that the single player won't be as cool and original as the first ones? If so, congrats!
As you can see budget cuts affect the amount of orange used.hazabaza1 said:If you look closely, you can see that his left hand has a slight orange tinge to it...
Ingenious!
OT: Not the worst I've seen(Megaman, Heavy Rain) just a bit generic as shown by the linked images above.
From a commercial point of view, the box art is very important, and I'm sure you can understand that.Arfonious said:
But we're not making money from Bioshock! The worst thing that can happen is to misrepresent the game and/or be uninteresting to potential consumers who are not looking for Generic Shooter 3: The Shotgun Strikes Back.
Yeah it's a generic image and I personally would have loved to see Elizabeth in the shot with him or maybe an action flying pose with that rail contraption of his, but sadly the "stoic-looking guy with a gun and explosions" image is the kind of image that's popular and sells so that's what they're gonna use. Good ol' marketing.
Pretty obvious reason: Market appeal. We all know Infinite is gonna be more than another MMS and this box art still hints at it. But, if you're gonna cast the net (which is what box art essentially does) casting one big net is much better than a smaller, more refined one. It doesn't affect the content of the game itself and is just there to boost sales figures. Besides, attracting more people to what will probably be one of the better games of 2013 isn't a bad thing.
Maybe it doesn't affect me as much because of all the knowledge I've acquired of the game beforehand but I do feel that it fits pretty well with the "Beast of America" trailer. The stance he's taking is stupid, sure, but with this cover you still see a blunderbuss, burning flag, and blimp. I'm getting a Spec Ops vibe where it may be disguising itself to draw people in and then deceive with a more engaging story then people might realize.
Maybe it doesn't affect me as much because of all the knowledge I've acquired of the game beforehand but I do feel that it fits pretty well with the "Beast of America" trailer. The stance he's taking is stupid, sure, but with this cover you still see a blunderbuss, burning flag, and blimp. I'm getting a Spec Ops vibe where it may be disguising itself to draw people in and then deceive with a more engaging story then people might realize.
I like it, just from a glance you can tell its an action FPS, set in a fantasy world, with political overtones. Seems to tell the story of the game pretty well. You could go with a more enigmatic cover but I doubt it would portray the game at a glance for the uninitiated which I assume box art is mainly for.
Oh my, that first one does look mightily spiffy. I wonder if there's a high res version of that image on the cover available. I'd be tempted to just make my own.White_Lama said:Why not one of these instead?
Then again, hopefully with being European, I won't have to look at that cover.
Thank god for Japan.TrevHead said:American Boxart
Japanese Boxart
Thank god I live in the UK where many games have the Japanese cover. Although Japan does have more cartoon tits though.
Don't ever lose that special touch you've got.
The box art is everything. Of course many smart gamers don't buy a game based on it's cover, but others do buy based on the cover. It's for the impulse buyers who buy a game just based on the promise of a cliche dude with a gun. Also the uneducated parents who don't know what their kids are playing, they just buy because there's a cliche dude on the cover with a gun and they know their stupid kids like that stuff. Then these types of people are stuck with the game because they can't return it when they find out it's not to their liking, all they can do is take it to gamestop for half the price.
The problem is this sort of thing is beginning to backfire, because how can they stand out to someone who buys a game based on it's cover, when all the games look exactly the same. They're confusing the already very stupid consumers.
The problem is this sort of thing is beginning to backfire, because how can they stand out to someone who buys a game based on it's cover, when all the games look exactly the same. They're confusing the already very stupid consumers.
I think you can make any type of cover art work by doing it right. So protagonist with a gun and a serious look on his face doesn't automatically equal a bad cover. I actually think it's a pretty nice looking box art. You can't get much better than that in the "guy with a gun" sub genre of box art. Having said that, I agree that it is a very generic choice (and Infinite is pretty damn far from generic) and they could have done much better.
The box art isn't for people who know what the game is about, the box art is to attract people who don't know what the game is about. American's respond better to the power fantasy created by this box art then to a more surreal or intriguing box art (or at least that's apparently what the survey's show).
Dark Souls's American cover annoys me to no end. It's so...bland and boring and "hurr cool-looking." It conveys absolutely zero emotion, while the Japanese cover gives you an immediate sense of just how isolated you are in the game.The Wykydtron said:
American cover:
Japanese cover:
As for Borderlands, honestly, I thought that the bandit cover from the first game was pretty original. A bandit shooting himself in the head with his gun-shaped hand, with the blood splatter out of his brain showing some action inside. Hell, the sequel took the first cover and added some more to it, to good effect, in my opinion. Two gun gestures on both sides of his head? What it loses in creativity, it gains in legitimacy.
It really is unique, the cell-shading mixed with a pose you wouldn't expect to see on a normal game cover.
Edit: Does anyone know how to make the large image smaller?
Double edit: On topic, like with the American cover of Dark Souls, it feels as if the Bioshock Infinite cover is essentially lying to consumers, since the cover doesn't at all convey the theme or feel of the game. Sure, it's fine that those that were already going to buy it are still going to get it, but it just feels so...dishonest.
