Have game's box art gotten worst?

[Jak]

54 minutes ago, totallycrushed said:

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I mean car sims can do the basic dude on the cover. But see car sims and arcade racers are about the cars and enthusiast love car porn. The cars are the focus point of the game.

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This shit is sexy as hell! 

 

That NfS one is badass, but it's not simple, it's detailed.

 

I find the bad covers to be games like Dead Space 2, inFAMOUS 2, Jak and Daxter: TPL, and Gravity Rush Remastered, ironically all great games and half being the best in the series.

 

DS2 is literally Isaac's helmet zoomed in upon. No other details, you cant hypothesize the setting, the game's genre and theme, etc.

 

inFAMOUS 2 is a step down from i1. inFAMOUS 2 fails to inform you that you'll learn a new power that becomes part of Cole's core moveset, something important for sequels. Cole literally is seen with half his body and one big palm of electricity emitting from it, as if this game was telling you Cole gets better with his electric powers and that's what's most important. The evil path actually has more meaning in this game and it's not even used by Cole at all, which also misleds gamers into thinking this is a typical character-action game with no kind of karma system, as if you were playing inFAMOUS First Light -- all pure pink neon power. 

 

JnD: TPL. No real standout features. You have no idea what to expect from this game. Cant even tell its a platformer. It lets you get an idea of the setting with the background but thats it. Compare to the vastly superior Jak 3 BA: Gun tells you youll be shooting, desert gives-away setting, vehicles tells you you'll drive and run into marauders, overall content lets you know the desert will be a place where shit will go down (war theme.... theme of Jak 3 is war).

 

Gravity Rush Rem. Simple, you have no idea what the game is about. The title could mean anything. Posing Kat in a position where she's using a power that suggest gravity shifting (like The Legend of Korra with her bending or inFAMOUS with electricity) would have alone made a pretty decent difference.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Mar

[ratchetdude231]

The box art for first person shooters are always boring I find. It's always just some dude standing holding a gun lol.  I actually really like the box art for Sony's platformers 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[totallycrushed]

14 minutes ago, Mar said:

 

*snip*

Yo but NA got screwed with Jak II. PAL cover has the attitude on point!

 

But I get that the car covers look bland to most players who are not car enthusiasts, they're basically the same as the dude on the cover shouldering a gun. 

 

But the NFS cover is a CE and usually with games with a LE/CE steel case box or cardboard sleeve over it has some dank box art.

 

 

EDIT: This site has some nice comparisons of cover art on different regions and releases. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by totallycrushed

[Asvinia]

I disagree.

 



 

I agree that they're not always so eye-catching, but I quite like some of those 'grizzly dude looks at floor/camera with gun/weapon' ones. Admittedly yeah, they don't stick in your memory quite so well.

[Super-Fly Spider-Guy]

I think the GTA covers all the way up to (and including) Vice City were pretty cool. GTA's had the wide shot of the buildings and cars and, at least in me, it evoked an idea of a large world that was yours for the taking. GTA 2's had the sniper zoom in on a taxi down below and gave me a sense of scope for lack of a better word, while the game itself wasn't an amazing improvement over GTA 1 the cover showed a tonne of people and cars and all you know is you had your gun trained on the cab, looks like it was ripped straight out of Die Hard 3. GTA 3 had a few covers, but the one I first saw was the one with you car jacking the guy. It's a cool piece of box art worthy of mention in itself, but the one I'm going with is the UK cover. The pile of characters and the skyscrapers and the action, it evokes memories of the original game's cover's promise of a huge sprawling world wherein you can do whatever you want, and this time it delivered in glorious 3D. Vice City was the first game in the series to introduce the now iconic GTA cover style and honestly doesn't need much to be said about it, everyone knows it, the sheer number of parodies of it out there is ridiculous.

 

I don't have a huge amount of time for a big reply right now, so I'll wrap up with this. I think that game covers started to REALLY lose their mojo by the time the PS2 gen kicked into gear. There were earlier examples on the PS1 era, obviously, but look at Crazy Taxi on the DreamCast

 

 

And look at Crazy Taxi on the PS2

 

 

And I think the point is pretty clearly made.

[Jak]

29 minutes ago, totallycrushed said:

Yo but NA got screwed with Jak II. PAL cover has the attitude on point!

 

But I get that the car covers look bland to most players who are not car enthusiasts, they're basically the same as the dude on the cover shouldering a gun. 

 

But the NFS cover is a CE and usually with games with a LE/CE steel case box or cardboard sleeve over it has some dank box art.

 

 

EDIT: This site has some nice comparisons of cover art on different regions and releases. 

 

Partially true. NA isnt too bad as it still sets the serious/mature tone still, and showcases gameplay features - driving shooting, transformation - and introduces new characters, somethings the PAL box aint do, doesnt even have Dark Jak up there either.

 

Yup

[bladesoframen]

Need to check through more of my library before I agree or disagree in general, but I don't understand the guy's hate of FF15's boxart. FF15 was supposed to be a deviation from the old FF games, and the game's theme was stated to be 4 guys on a roadtrip. As a result, the cover art is 4 guys with a car in the middle of nowhere, looks fitting to me.

[euantp_]

4 hours ago, TheYuriG said:

Nope, opinion is subjective. Have you seen the cover for the new YS? It's the bomb

You're right but I feel overall looking at every cover art being produced, overall the quality is lower. Definitely still some cool ones being produced though.

Edited February 21, 2017 by monseiurpatty

[Zenpai]

Would you guys please, please, PLEASE stop showing me new awesome videos from awesome channels that I will have to see all of the videos for, even though I already have a gigantic YouTube backlog?

[DaivRules]

To answer the horribly written thread title: No. I have been buying games and been influenced by its box art since Atari 2600 and NES. Those were actually the most deceptive box art of all time. Also some of the ugliest. Has it gotten "worst" than that??? No. It's not possible.

You've all been incredibly spoiled with PS2+ box art and don't appreciate what you've had. Hell, some of you have never bought a boxed game in your incredibly short lives and think digital is the only option. Box art in the days of full access to the internet in your pocket is like buying a porn magazine. 

[SnowxSakura]

Yeah. Boxart has only gotten bad now, guess we can forget about these

I'll just leave these "gems" here for ya

that's just some of them too

Edited February 22, 2017 by SnowxSakura

[PSXtreme_]

Obviously not many of you remember the old school Atari/NES/SNES box art, or even the PSOne covers, that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the actual game inside.

 

Art is and will always be subjective

[jacks]

I just watched that video the other day, when it was advertised on my front page of youtube. Funny thing about that Doom 2016 cover you mentioned being the "worst" compared to the old one -- have you seen the alternate cover? Very throwback-esque, and it's quite beautiful (well... relatively speaking). I also really loved the special edition of Uncharted 4 (the steelbook).

 

I think the only boxart that's ever bothered me was FFXV's "US boy band" cover, to be honest. Even the series staple of putting the FF lettering mixed with a picture of a deity or something rather from the game was completely absent. Didn't affect me much, since I ordered the great steelbook edition, but the standard version was kind of embarrassing.

 

I actually think a lot of art work has kind of improved. I always thought a lot of the old school designs were kind of hokey. Maybe well done, but still hokey, and I think he even addresses the primary reason for the maximalist designs for the games in question in that very video.

Edited February 22, 2017 by iamjax

[TristanBrown17]

The way I see it, the rise of the internet and technology as a whole has revolutionized marketing. If you look at stuff from even 10-20 years ago, it seems to be from a different generation completely. The need to draw a consumer to a certain game via the box art has essentially disappeared as marketing has changed to internet and tv ads. This isn't to say that all box art is lazy, because sometimes the simple designs can cut clear through the game racks of the local store. I typically buy for the game, not the cover. I enjoy seeing interesting covers because I strongly prefer to buy my games physically. For example, a couple games I think have interesting, yet simplistic covers would be...

[Pershing24]

On 2/21/2017 at 9:38 PM, SnowxSakura said:

Yeah. Boxart has only gotten bad now, guess we can forget about these

I'll just leave these "gems" here for ya

that's just some of them too

 

I didn't say that all old video game box cover were good, but thank you for reminding me how bad Final Zone 2 cover was, and I had no idea that was the North american cover for Mega Man 2.

 

Its nice to see everyone has their different opinion on box cover these days, most of which don't really mind what the cover looks like. But it really does bother me that most developers aren't trying anymore to make the cover more appealing or artistic, it just always the same. How I see it, this is happening because of two main reason:

 

1.They don't need to rely on the cover box anymore, because most games these days, look just as good or better than the box cover. So there's no reason to convince the player to get the game.

 

2. I notice that these days, most of us are buying our game digitally thanks to reliable online stores like steam, origins, uplay, xbox live and of course Playstation store. and because physical copies are getting rarer, well 'box' covers are going to be a thing of the past.

 

I guess it true what they says, you don't judge a book by it cover, or in this case game cover.

Except this one. It belongs in hell.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Pershing24

[Berryjammy5]

 

 

10/10 box art right here. RPG's in general have amazing box art, so I'm gonna say that box art is as strong as ever.

[QuentinCle95]

I agree that many action titles center too much on the main character(s). In movies posters, this happened because floating heads showed off the celebrity actors. In games, this is never the case (there are rare exceptions like Beyond Two Souls), so just showing the main character is a bit boring. 

Here are some covers from the last couple years that I do like though:

• The Evil Within, Limited Edition: The brain covered in barbed wire is iconic for the game, using an upside down mansion for the lower half of the brain is genius, and it's visually gripping that the title is in the center of where everything's going on, in stead of some remote place. 
• The Evil Within, Standard Edition: The attention-grasping title acts as a "dangerous object" in the poster, being close to piercing the character's eye. Everything except reds and the barbed wire is greyscale. Again, the barbed wire is more eye-popping than the head it's surrounding (and it doesn't count as a floating face because the face is, irregularly, placed sideways.)
• Resident Evil 7 Lenticular Edition: The real content of the box art is contained within the shape of the antagonist, in a style similar to Friday The 13th box art. The cover introduces the mysterious setting of the game  (emphasizing that we're dealing with an actual residence) and gives some details to the antagonist if you look at it for a bit longer. It's not really unique to the box art, but the "VII" thing in the title was ingenious! 
• Until Dawn Standard Edition: Simple, but elegant and relevant. To the backdrop of breaking ice (relevant since it's set in winter), a skull sits as the top part of an hourglass, signifying that your death may be closeby. Within the bottom half of the hourglass, you see all of the characters, the environment where you'll spend some of the game, and the "sand" that's flowing through the middle part of the hourglass resembles snowfall. 
• Dying Light: It's obvious, but effective, and aesthetically pleasing: There's a clear divide between day and night, with a zombie acting as the transition. Not only does this create some nice contrast, it also introduces the core gameplay. Also notice how the zombies in the light look relatively docile, while the grasping hands on the dark side show that they're more aggressive at night.
• The upcoming Prey: A man stands on a simplistic walkway with simplistic walls, surrounded by a black mass that seems to be attacking him, but upon closer inspection also shows us space and some man-made constructions inside. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pattern? All horror games. This is actually usually also a trend with horror movies. Because celebrities see horror films as B-films, there often won't be any celebrities in a given horror film. To make up for the fact that they have no recognizable heads to float above the title, they often use some minimalist or symbolic cover picture (this happens across both good and bad horror films, though of course not to all of them). Examples are: Sinister, some seasons of American Horror Story, V/H/S, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Devil, Fright Night, The Witch, Lights Out, Jaws, Shaun Of The Dead, It Follows, The Neon Demon. You get the point. 

 

Other cover arts I quite like include The Last Guardian (as well as any cover from Team Ico except the North American version of Ico lol), No Man's Sky, The Talos Principle, Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, Batman Arkham Knight, Metal Gear Solid V The Definitive Edition (This one also looks like a traditional movie box art, but of course this is exactly what the game is going for, and it has enough spunk to stand out), and like you said, Killzone Shadow Fall. 

[Kapika96]

I actually think it's better. The focus on the main character is an improvement in my eyes.

[damon8r351]

I'd think it'd be pretty neat if a video game box had a completely black box art. No text, no graphics, just black. It's like it asks, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

Edited February 22, 2017 by damon8r351

[yellowwindow7]

am I the only one who don't give a shit if the game's box art is good or bad?

 

well I respect the people who's wasting their time on making the box art good enough before releasing, but when I bought my games physical the only thing I want is the disc/cartridge/card or chip, the box is only been used to keep the game clean and safe to me, also to tell the difference or to find it easily on my shelf.

[QuentinCle95]

1 hour ago, yellowwindow7 said:

am I the only one who don't give a shit if the game's box art is good or bad?

 

well I respect the people who's wasting their time on making the box art good enough before releasing, but when I bought my games physical the only thing I want is the disc/cartridge/card or chip, the box is only been used to keep the game clean and safe to me, also to tell the difference or to find it easily on my shelf.

 

The thing is, while most hardcore gamers do keep up with all the games releasing and can name a title based on just a glance at the main character, casual gamers don't keep up with gaming as much, and don't know many of the games they could encounter when in a game store. A cover art is basically designed by marketing departments to make people who haven't heard of a given game before, but see it on the shelves, want to buy it. 

 

When Bioshock Infinite's box art was released, for instance, there was outcry from fans that it looked so bland and generic. The director Ken Levine explicitly stated that they compromised on the box art to appeal to non-fans, random gamers who see it on the shelf and want to find a game they'll enjoy among all the other games on the shelves they don't know about. That's why video game box art is worked on much.

 

And oftentimes, original box art is something that would drive casual consumers away. A box art with some abstract object and art around it is not making clear what the game's genre is, and thus buying it as an uninformed consumer would be a risk many wouldn't want to take. That's mainly the reason, I think, that so little box arts are actually original or artistically sound. 

 

That said, that's the marketing basis of video game box art ever since gaming became an enormous market. It's entirely possible that this market strategy is now completely defunct. In the age of smartphones, if a consumer doesn't know anything about something he doesn't know on the shelf, he can just google it right there in the store. Perhaps video game covers are less important now for the sales than they used to be. That's just my intuition though, I haven't read any research on that matter. 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

I immediately used the alt cover for DOOM, which is amazing.

 

More recent box art I enjoyed:

 

(shut up, de box art was good, as well as the music)

 

And, to prove that "protagonist with weapon" can still be cool and fitting:

 

 

Edited February 22, 2017 by BillyHorrible

[yellowwindow7]

10 hours ago, QuentinCle95 said:

 

The thing is, while most hardcore gamers do keep up with all the games releasing and can name a title based on just a glance at the main character, casual gamers don't keep up with gaming as much, and don't know many of the games they could encounter when in a game store. A cover art is basically designed by marketing departments to make people who haven't heard of a given game before, but see it on the shelves, want to buy it. 

 

When Bioshock Infinite's box art was released, for instance, there was outcry from fans that it looked so bland and generic. The director Ken Levine explicitly stated that they compromised on the box art to appeal to non-fans, random gamers who see it on the shelf and want to find a game they'll enjoy among all the other games on the shelves they don't know about. That's why video game box art is worked on much.

 

And oftentimes, original box art is something that would drive casual consumers away. A box art with some abstract object and art around it is not making clear what the game's genre is, and thus buying it as an uninformed consumer would be a risk many wouldn't want to take. That's mainly the reason, I think, that so little box arts are actually original or artistically sound. 

 

That said, that's the marketing basis of video game box art ever since gaming became an enormous market. It's entirely possible that this market strategy is now completely defunct. In the age of smartphones, if a consumer doesn't know anything about something he doesn't know on the shelf, he can just google it right there in the store. Perhaps video game covers are less important now for the sales than they used to be. That's just my intuition though, I haven't read any research on that matter. 

now that you have mention it, way back when I was 13, 14 years old I used to fall to that old trick on the book where developers and publishers used to put an image of a cute or a hot chic (most of the time could be the main character of the game) then it's an instant buy for me

when I used to follow this cutie or hot chic "human or furry" on the box art wether the game ended up as a hit or a miss, but I have to admit that most of them ended as a miss resulting me hated the game with a passion.

 

nowdays a name or a box art won't sold me over a game, a quick game play footage and "users" reviews and playing a demo or trial if possible will.

[Pershing24]

I just remembered a simple solution to this issue, and its not just alternative covers, but also Steel cases.

 

Although usually available in collector or special/limited editions, many games have steel cases that are also sold separately. And some of them are pretty awesome looking.

 

Doom has a great one that is definitely a step up from the standard.

 

I love the Uncharted 4 one, with the entire cast together.

 

And finally God of War Ascension is simple but appealing one with the golden omega symbol.

Anyone else got some good looking steel cases?

Edited February 25, 2017 by Pershing24

[ratchetdude231]

The box arts for a lot of the JRPGs are awesome as well.

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2017 by ratchetdude231