Judging a video game by it's cover · 5:59pm Nov 13th, 2016
I found a link to an interesting article about video game cover art of all things, and in particular why so many video games have "man with gun" cover art:
As part of its media ramp-up for the impending March 26 release of BioShock Infinite, Irrational Games released the official box art for the game on December 1. A great wail emerged from the Internet and there was much rending of garments over the cover, which didn’t seem to befit such an imaginative, ambitious, anticipated game. The majesty of the floating city of Columbia, the intrigue of Elizabeth and the Songbird, the game’s grappling with weighty topics of politics and racism had all seemingly been reduced down to that most generic of videogame tropes: angry dude with a gun.
...
“I understand that some of the fans are disappointed. We expected it. I know that may be hard to hear, but let me explain the thinking.”
“We went and did a tour… around to a bunch of, like, frathouses and places like that. People who were gamers. Not people who read IGN. And [we] said, so, have you guys heard of BioShock? Not a single one of them had heard of it.”
“And we live in this very special… you know, BioShock is a reasonably successful franchise, right? Our gaming world, we sometimes forget, is so important to us, but… there are plenty of products that I buy that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. My salad dressing. If there’s a new salad dressing coming out, I would have no idea. I use salad dressing; I don’t read Salad Dressing Weekly. I don’t care who makes it, I don’t know any of the personalities in the salad dressing business.”
“For some people, [games are] like salad dressing. Or movies, or TV shows. It was definitely a reality check for us. Games are big, and they’re expensive, I think that’s very clear. And to be successful, and to continue to make these kinds of games which frankly, of the people who make these types of games, there’s not a lot of them, and they haven’t exactly been the most successful with these types of games that have come out in the last few years. I was thrilled because I love them, and I hope that we had some small role in getting those games greenlit… But they have to be financially successful to keep getting made.”
“I looked at the cover art for BioShock 1, which I was heavily involved with and love, I adored. And I tried to step back and say, if I’m just some guy, some frat guy, I love games but don’t pay attention to them… if I saw the cover of that box, what would I think? And I would think, this is a game about a robot and a little girl. That’s what I would think. I was trying to be honest with myself. Trust me, I was heavily involved with the creation of those characters and I love them.”
“Would I buy that game if I had 60 bucks and I bought three games a year… would I even pick up the box? I went back to the box for System Shock 1, which was obviously incredibly important — that game was incredibly influential on me, System Shock 2 was the first game I ever made. I remember I picked it up… looked at it and I said, I have no idea what this game is. And I didn’t have a lot of money back then. So, back on the shelf. And I was a gamer.”
“I wanted the uninformed, the person who doesn’t read IGN… to pick up the box and say, okay, this looks kind of cool, let me turn it over. Oh, a flying city. Look at this girl, Elizabeth on the back. Look at that creature. And start to read about it, start to think about it.”
So, keep that in mind when you're making cover art for something - it needs to grab people's attention and actually tell your audience why they should consume it. The cover art isn't for the fans - it is for the people who don't know they're fans yet.
Incidentally, for those of you who aren't gamers: you play as a man with a gun in the original Bioshock. The big robot thing and the little girl are enemies, but the main reason everyone remembers the game is because of a plot twist towards the end which changes the context of everything you've been doing up to that point in the game. It also heavily criticizes Objectivism.
A man chooses. A slave obeys.
I think that it is more a reference to what happens after the twist, in which you become the "big daddy" and gets aided by the little sisters.
Huh. I think that in a way, this encapsulates in a nutshell Brexit and Trump's victory.
In those cases, the left 's cover art wasn't changed at all.
I've got some beef with quite a few things Ken Levine has said...
This isn't one of them.
A game can be a seven out of five, and that doesn't mean diddle-scat if, say, all people see is some 'ugly monkey creature' and passes on it.
mixnmojo.com/galleries/full/full20051006160008.jpg
Case in point. I'm a gamer, have been since I scraped tougher enough money to buy Planescape Freaking Torment of all titles, and I still hesitated on seeing that strange, ugly monkey creature on the box. 'Can this really be that great? They didn't care enough to make the box it comes in interesting, so how good could the game actually be?'
Now, I did buy it, and loved it... but frankly? I'm completely understanding of anybody that made the same choice reversed, because games are an expansive luxury, and dropping sixty bucks on a newly released clunker means you pass on the six or so classics in the bargain bin for 9:99$ a pop you could had months of fun with.
Heck, speaking of Torment, I've heard similar stories about that one.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/06/Planescape-torment-box.jpg
Personally, found it intriguing and exotic—nothing like it on the shelves at the time, but I've heard of people listing it as one of the ugliest covers of all time as well. So to each their own.
Still...
media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/2kgames/irrationalgames/bioshock-infinite/coverart/bioshockaltart_610a.jpg
I do sadly have to agree. Bioshock Infinite simply wouldn't have sold as it did with the alternative cover. It's neat, but makes the thing look as some sort of artsy Batman Arkham-X rip-off with half the budget.
Say what you want about the artistic merits of the one they went for, but Bocker is in the whole game, and shooting dudes for 70~% of it. If nothing else, you have to respect that degree of truth in advertising.
The problem I have is that he seems to think it is mutually exclusive, that you either have to show a generic guy with a gun to appeal to frat boys or you can totally lose them and focus on everything else, and you can't do anything inbetween. But as a counter example, I give you:
imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/86/8668/NL5U300Z/posters/star-wars-episode-iv-new-hope-classic-movie-poster.jpg
Now, that's a poster, so obviously meant to be seen on a larger scale. You wouldn't put that much stuff into the game box art. But look at what it does do. It tells you Luke is the focus, the main hero, just like that pretty meh Bioshock box. But then it shows you locations, supporting cast, and promises you space battles and gun battles. And a guy with a laser sword. That's a bit of art that tells you about the product, and makes you want to check it out (unless you don't like laser swords and space battles, of course).
Now, say you're at the store, and you, like me, don't read gaming web sites. And you've got a choice between a game with a generic FPS guy standing in front of what appears to be a burning US flag, or one that still has a focus on him, but also shows some of the wonders of its world, some of what makes it unique from dozens of other games of "guy with gun" (though at least the guy in the last one has a cool suit). I can guarantee I'm more likely to pick up the one with the interesting stuff on it beyond guy with gun. And since that cover art lacks interesting stuff, I'll just get this game instead:
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/doom/images/8/85/Doom.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080913150951
Because bland and generic is just about as bad as "I've got no clue if this game is the sort I'm looking for", and what you really want is cover art that says "It's this type of game, and you should check ours out because we're cooler than the others".
4300822
The first time I saw the Planescape: Torment box art, I thought it was fake. Like, that no one could possibly have made cover art that terrible.
Really, they took some guy, dressed him up, then turned him blue with Photoshop.
It is also an incredibly lazy orange-and-blue cover which manages to look unappealing.
4300834
To be fair, the DOOM remake has slightly different cover art:
static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/13/137381/2846580-doom.jpg
Slightly.
DOOM pretty much is "murder a bunch of demons with guns", so I mean, if you're wanting to murder a lot of demons, that's kind of what that game is for.
I do agree that the cover art could be more dynamic, and I feel like a lot of these games end up looking far too samey/not giving enough setting details in their cover art.
On the other hand, the Bioshock Infinite cover does have the other main character, Elizabeth, on the back:
gamepur.com/files/imagepicker/6/bioshock_infinite_box_art_1.jpg
They could have done more to show that the game takes place in a flying city, though.
4300867 Having her on the back requires me to pick up the game and turn it over, though. If I do that, then the cover art has fulfilled its purpose, because at that point, I'm reading words and looking at screenshots. Though that pre-order back of the box is, well, lame, spending more words hyping a different game than itself. So they change the cover art so Joe Fratboy who doesn't know the game will pick up the box... and then do absolutely nothing to sell him on the game on the back beyond "those people whose stuff you don't read gave it awards". Fail.
Anyway, it's the front of the box that has to tell me what sort of game it is (which it does) and why I should check it out over the dozens other FPSs (which it doesn't). And yeah, seeing parts of the flying city, some of the steampunk things would help. Far Cry covers are pretty generic as well, but they at least show much the jungle island, and are therefore more interesting than this.
Right, it tells you exactly what it is, and why you should play it instead of other games. But if it was just Space Marine with a gun, it'd be a much crappier piece of cover art.
They even do it when the cover art is shitty beyond belief. One of the most famous crap-art video game covers of all time is for one of my favorite games (click twice to expand the image for the full effect):
hbvideogames.com/system/video_games/avatars/000/004/066/original/Phantasy_20Star_20II.jpg?1418727356
It looks like an old guy with a melting face and a woman with horns. But they're both supposed to be young, and those are supposed to be ears, not horns. Not to mention the strange pose, staring off into space in different directions like a horror-show family photo, and that bizarre-looking monster standing right in front of them.
The irony? The actual art in the game is fucking amazing. Putting character and battle screenshots from the game on the cover would have been a million times better, but that wasn't what you were supposed to do with box art in the 80's.
4300991
The best of all time for misleadingly hilariously bad cover art has to be Mega Man 2. I mean, c'mon. You can't even get past that.
4300808
Yes, Starlight Glimmer
4301077
No, no, the original Mega Man is worse.
2.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/37/98/d3dccf401c36c0f9632c23c719eb80f6.jpg
4301429
Dang, the man with a gun cover art goes back to the beginning doesn't it?
4301429 Thats the one I meant!
4301574
It's true.