Ken Levine on BioShock Infinite's Bro-Tastic Cover Art

Treblaine

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Eclipse Dragon said:
Treblaine said:
Eclipse Dragon said:
or why the game needs to star a white guy in the first place.
It doesn't have to, it's just a trend that reflects the ethnic background of the people who MADE the games.

Are you equally surprised that Kung Fu films made in china mainly star... people from China.

Or that Indian Bollywood films mainly star people who are from... India.

I'm not the type of berk who refuses to watch an excellent Kung Fu movie because the hero isn't White-European... I don't see why anyone else should reject any other game for the race of the protagonists because that is the very definition of racism.
I never said I was rejecting the game.
Actually I never really opposed the cover art.
You're taking things too seriously.
Hey, you said:
"or why the game needs to star a white guy in the first place."

Why would you make such a weasel statement? Asking "why is it such" is such a backhanded weasel way of making an allegation and passing it off as a question. The allegation is clear: "the games need to star a white guy" to spite the many examples to the contrary.

You can't make serious allegations about race then be like "You're taking things too seriously."

Frankly I find your racial profiling inappropriate. It's not like non-whites are excluded from games, but your necessity to point out " Socom 4 has three white guys holding guns" is inflammatory while stating "Actually I never really opposed the cover art" is clearly you trying to weasel out of your insinuations. Take some responsibility.
 

Eclipse Dragon

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Treblaine said:
The fact that you're accusing me of being racist just because I pointed out that Socom 4 has three white guys on the cover is being too serious about something as silly as "video game cover art" Yes Socom 4 has three white guys on the cover. It's a fact. It doesn't have 2 white guys and a girl, or 1 white guy, and 2 guys of other races.

What I'm trying to say is arguing over video game cover art is silly, all I did in my initial post is find some images on Google because Grey asked "How many you name on which a white man holds a gun and stares off into the middle distance while something explodes/catches fire?" and my going and looking for examples and posting them somehow offended you.

Well I'm sorry and I won't be participating in this discussion any longer because you seem to be wanting to make it into something more than it is. Have a good day sir.
 

Treblaine

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Eclipse Dragon said:
Treblaine said:
The fact that you're accusing me of being racist just because I pointed out that Socom 4 has three white guys on the cover is being too serious about something as silly as "video game cover art" Yes Socom 4 has three white guys on the cover. It's a fact. It doesn't have 2 white guys and a girl, or 1 white guy, and 2 guys of other races.

What I'm trying to say is arguing over video game cover art is silly, all I did in my initial post is find some images on Google because Grey asked "How many you name on which a white man holds a gun and stares off into the middle distance while something explodes/catches fire?" and my going and looking for examples and posting them somehow offended you.

Well I'm sorry and I won't be participating in this discussion any longer because you seem to be wanting to make it into something more than it is. Have a good day sir.

You've really tried so hard to back out of what you've said, but you never just tried admitting you did wrong.

I mean are you too proud? I make mistakes like this, but I don't pretend I didn't do what I did, that won't help anything but a retraction will. It's easy. It cost nothing and gains everything.

I mean why the hell did you start making racial allegations? Don't try to weasel out of this as it being "silly" you went far further than that by bringing race and gender politics into this. The allegation of games cover-art being for exceptionally for white men is not "silly". You think citing facts selectively isn't deceptive? That's a lawyer-lie, saying the literal truth but leaving a deceptive meaning by going on about "3 white guys with guns" the impression is unmistakable... yet conveniently for you, easy to weasel out of with plausible deniability.

Oh but good for you, you've made some inflammatory allegations and now you are just ducking out, how very productive of you, this is really helping the forum debate with this kind of crap.

WTF happened to these forums? Everyone knows what you are doing, well, I wish everyone knew. That's the problem.
 

Eclipse Dragon

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Treblaine said:
Quoting my last post

Well I'm sorry and I won't be participating in this discussion any longer because you seem to be wanting to make it into something more than it is. Have a good day sir.
I did apologize, and just so you know, that is a sincere apology. I made a "harmless" comment and that made you angry. I'm not participating any further because my doing so only seems to make you more angry and no matter what I say, you don't ever seem to be happy. I'm sure we both have better things to do with our time than argue online.

I'm calling a truce, what do you say?
Friends?
 

Treblaine

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Eclipse Dragon said:
Treblaine said:
Quoting my last post

Well I'm sorry and I won't be participating in this discussion any longer because you seem to be wanting to make it into something more than it is. Have a good day sir.
I did apologize, and just so you know, that is a sincere apology. I made a "harmless" comment and that made you angry. I'm not participating any further because my doing so only seems to make you more angry and no matter what I say, you don't ever seem to be happy. I'm sure we both have better things to do with our time than argue online.

I'm calling a truce, what do you say?
Friends?
I did not realise that was an apology or retraction for what you said, but an excuse for ducking out, the equivalent of "sorry, I'm leaving sucker". I am sorry for not getting that meaning.

Though if you are retroactively clarifying that to mean a sincere apology of your allegations (that would include a retraction if sincere) okay. Though it's obviously not a full retraction because you still doggedly insist it was "harmless" even though you admit it's made me angry. A classic deflection of "it's you're fault your getting angry, not me". But what the hell, everyone does that.

I don't know if you are clueless or if one some level you know what insinuations you are making.

I don't care any more. Truce. I think we've both said all we are going to say on this.
 

Eclipse Dragon

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Treblaine said:
It's so easy to misinterpret things written online. I think there might have been a little bit of that on both sides.
I suppose if we were all psychic and knew automatically the intentions of others, things like this wouldn't happen.
Call me clueless, I guess I am. My intention really wasn't to insult anyone, just so you know.

What was that quote...
"Some of the worlds greatest crimes have been committed with the best of intentions"
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
 

Treblaine

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Eclipse Dragon said:
Treblaine said:
It's so easy to misinterpret things written online. I think there might have been a little bit of that on both sides.
I suppose if we were all psychic and knew automatically the intentions of others, things like this wouldn't happen.
Call me clueless, I guess I am. My intention really wasn't to insult anyone, just so you know.

What was that quote...
"Some of the worlds greatest crimes have been committed with the best of intentions"
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Yeah, I think that was Bioshock's Andrew Ryan... and I think he was quoted rather cynically as you hear that in the destructive anarchy on Rapture you see where his "screw good intentions" ideology led to. It's kind of the villain's speech, I guess it's a case of Poe's law, a satire of an ideology can inadvertently be an example of it. Like how many people take Steven Colbert's declarations as literally good advice.

But I do have a good quote for "best intentions":


Doesn't really mean anything, it's just some cold blooded shit about how you do not defy guy with the gun.
 

Puzzlenaut

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Jesus christ this thread is full of pettiness. Shut the hell up about "dude-bro-shooters"; it doesn't look like one and it wouldn't matter if it did.

Videogame box art isn't arty in the same way that, say, movie posters often are; generally speaking box-art tends to be a pre-rendered shot of the gameplay with the main character on it somewhere, with not much more variation than that. Its advertisement, not art. This game's cover looks perfectly serviceable and better than most.

Get the hell over yourselves in your pathetic rush to see who can condemn that lesser race of people who enjoy CoD games the quickest by ironically using the word "bro" like its an original idea or clever in anyway. You're as childish as people who constantly use the word "fag" in order to try and make sure everybody knows that they are definitely not, themselves, a "fag".

JEEZ.

(and yes, I am aware that there are some games with fantastic box-art out there, but Bioshock was never one of those to begin with)
 

carlh267

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Levine just announced that there will be reversible covers for the game, and he wants us to choose from several possibilities. Vote on one at http://irrationalgames.com/insider/poll/

I?m happy to announce that the game will come with a reversible cover.

But that?s not all. We want to hear your voice on what that cover should be. To that end, we?ve arranged a poll below that lets you choose from several potential reversible covers. I?ve got my favorite, but I?m not telling which. We?ve got to do this quickly to meet our print deadlines, so vote soon. Like, NOW!

But what?s that you say? You want even more choice in covers? We?re also going to be arranging a whole mess of MORE alternate covers which will be available to download and print yourself. Of course, these are free and we?d love to hear your thoughts in the forums as to what you?d like to see.
My personal favorite is design number 4 <3.
 

Porecomesis

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Treblaine said:
Porecomesis said:
The Little Sister holding the syringe brought across that there would be something dead wrong with Rapture, especially.
#1 you don't know from the cover she is a "little sister" or what that even is
#2 you can't know from the cover it is even set in a closed-off underwater city like rapture
#3 one freaky individual doesn't tell you anything about the whole place. Leatherface on the cover of Texas Chainsaw Massacre does not mean all of Texas is full of people like that.
#4 it's not clear is she is the playable character or a sidekick or an enemy. As Ken Levine said, going in with no prior briefing you'd think it was an artsy-fartsy game where you play a little girl bossing a big robot around.

It didn't ACTUALLY sell the game which is the ENTIRE POINT of having box art.

Well, I suppose another appeal is for the collectors sense of satisfaction, but the actual content creators put work into the box art to SELL the game, not to further satisfy those who are already in love with the game and would buy it even if sold in a blank case.
1) She looks freaky. Like a zombie, in fact.
2) The Big Daddy is stomping in water in a dark environment.
3) I have no idea what Texas Chainsaw Massacre is but the Little Sister does infer that the people you meet won't be pleasant.
4) That's irrelevant. She does not look particularly pleasant. That's the point. Also, no I wouldn't because they come across as unfriendly. And why would I think the Little Sister was controlling the Big Daddy? Okay, yeah, she's hiding behind him but I really don't get that impression.

By the way, how well did the US version of Ico do when it was first released?
 

Falseprophet

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I honestly have to wonder how much marketing is based on actual data and facts, and how much of it is no better than blind faith in some kind of magic.

Sure, there is some overlap between people who play bro-shooters and people who play other kinds of AAA titles. But the top-tier bro-shooters tend to sell much more than other AAA titles that aren't NES/SNES/Gameboy era legacy franchises, or casual Wii and Kinect games. Like 7 to 11 million in sales for recent bro-shooter titles (COD, Halo, Gears) and rarely more than 4 million for other AAA titles. So there are probably gamers who buy 2 or more AAA titles a month, and have diverse interests, and play bro-shooters alongside action platformers, RPGs, and other genres. But there must also be some of those millions who probably don't buy many other games, and just hang out playing multiplayer COD and Gears all the time. Is it actually worthwhile to try and market to those people?
 

Treblaine

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Porecomesis said:
Treblaine said:
Porecomesis said:
The Little Sister holding the syringe brought across that there would be something dead wrong with Rapture, especially.
#1 you don't know from the cover she is a "little sister" or what that even is
#2 you can't know from the cover it is even set in a closed-off underwater city like rapture
#3 one freaky individual doesn't tell you anything about the whole place. Leatherface on the cover of Texas Chainsaw Massacre does not mean all of Texas is full of people like that.
#4 it's not clear is she is the playable character or a sidekick or an enemy. As Ken Levine said, going in with no prior briefing you'd think it was an artsy-fartsy game where you play a little girl bossing a big robot around.

It didn't ACTUALLY sell the game which is the ENTIRE POINT of having box art.

Well, I suppose another appeal is for the collectors sense of satisfaction, but the actual content creators put work into the box art to SELL the game, not to further satisfy those who are already in love with the game and would buy it even if sold in a blank case.
1) She looks freaky. Like a zombie, in fact.
2) The Big Daddy is stomping in water in a dark environment.
3) I have no idea what Texas Chainsaw Massacre is but the Little Sister does infer that the people you meet won't be pleasant.
4) That's irrelevant. She does not look particularly pleasant. That's the point. Also, no I wouldn't because they come across as unfriendly. And why would I think the Little Sister was controlling the Big Daddy? Okay, yeah, she's hiding behind him but I really don't get that impression.

By the way, how well did the US version of Ico do when it was first released?
1) ignores my point of how Little Sisters are hosts for genetic engineering experiment, not just that she's freaky.
2) ignores my point of isolation and distinctness of environment
3) www.google.co.uk/search?q=Texas+Chainsaw+Massacre&oq=Texas+Chainsaw+Massacre and you ignored my point of representation of wider population of Rapture
4) who the playable character is, that IS a very relevant point. The protagonist is put on the cover art usually for good reason.

Ken Levine himself said that was the impression left by the box art that it was "little girl and her big robot buddy" game.

As far as I know, Ico sold poorly in US, it also sold poorly in UK where it got a very artistic picture for the cover art. In both cases the game simply was not advertised effectively at all.

 

Crazy Zaul

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The fact that it includes the original is the most interesting thing on that cover. I didn't know that till now.
 

Mrkillhappy

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wetfart said:
The more I look at it, the more I think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5iTpleCndo

On second thought, a Evil Dead / Bioshock crossover would be awesome! Why is that not being made?
Glad to See I'm not the only one who thought this.
 

Altorin

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I honestly don't understand the hubbub. It's not freaking Mega Man or Heavy Rain. The game features a guy who uses a gun. I think it looks kind of neat actually, and if you're one of those types that for some reason thoroughly has twisted knickers, the game has a flippable cover to allow you to be all like "look at my awesome"

Can we please stop this insanity now?
 

Fwee

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The Tall Nerd said:
i know quite a bit of folks in fraternities, and they are respectable people,and they help out in the community. though those are black fraternities and they may operate different.

on topic i haven't bought a video game because of a case, in....ever?
Apologies all around.

I meant that to be Ken Levine's apparent opinion of the Fraternity community.
Because according to him, the most important group of game purchasers are the stereotypical "Bros" that only have interest in breasts, guns, and Madden.
Which is kind of true in a way. Fans aren't important, because you've already got your hooks in them. They'll buy the next game no matter what. They might complain, but you can just write that off as "you can't satisfy everyone!"