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I would have to say because art-sy does not appeal to most american marketing firms. They think box art being closer to a movie poster is a GOOD thing, so they try to show more explosions/cleavage, and taking a que from TV show promotional art, just LOVE having cast line ups and collages for some retarded reason. | |
Americans don't choose the box art on these games. The box art is more a reflection of what foreign game devs think we are rather than what we actually are. That said, the best way to market anything is to market to the lowest common denominator. Advertising and branding in the US is always targeted to complete morons on the logic that only complete morons can be influenced by advertising and marketing. If you think about it that makes sense. Only a total moron would buy a game based on the box art, right? Unless there are boobs. I kinda like the American Heavy Rain art, but I'm pretty sure it's just the boobs. | |
This isn't true. In these cases the change in box art is usually made by the localization team commissioned by the publisher in the area the game is going to be released. In the cases were the original developer is involved they're essentially commissioned by the localization team and have very little creative control. So if anything this is a reflection of what american game localization companies think the american public is. | |
and that is probably your answer. First of all, the design house, due to being in a foreign country (foreign to the developer), has no real idea what the game is truly about. It becomes less of an extension of the game and more of a mishmash of ideas. Plus, does this mean all American design houses are the same? They may employ bottom of the barrel designers. There is obviously a disconnect, because there is a theme here. Games developed outside of the US, and then a US design house developing the artwork. It's not like US video game players are here clamoring "what are you talking about, those US covers are sweet!" In fact, just the opposite. How about pointing the finger at the companies who let perfectly good box art getting mangled by artists who obviously have little idea about the game, or are simply trying to hit as many marketing demographics as possible (hence why some become a mess from a good minimalistic original). There are plenty examples of good US based art work. As stated, how about pointing the finger at the game studios instead of the consumers they force it on. Yet hey, why would I want to ruin another perfectly good American bashing thread? | |
I just graduated with a degree in graphic design in the US and yea, I can understand what Yahtzee is saying. I remember working on movie posters and I tried to do the artsy symbolic teaser type of poster but nooooo. I was pushed into doing the big star sell. And it was like that in every class. If it involved a movie, I had to make sure that the damn actor was the most prominent feature on it. Sometimes that wasn't enough, "Make the head larger, no larger than that! Make it so large that it bleeds off the edges! That's not large enough!". Repeat, repeat. It really disgusted me, I hated it. It's designed to appeal to uncultured people who don't want their minds to be provoked. So yea, even new graphic design students are taught to make those awful kind of designs. Makes me dread for when I have to work for an actual studio. | |
Yahtzee's guidelines are certainly well and truly valid, but of course, no one said they had to apply. Send in America who, through trial and error, found a few topics that are bound to sell real well. The top three are: 1: Sex Therefore 90% of all box art has to be culmination of all three. Who gives a flick about the story? The average gamer just wants boobs and guns! (insert redneck joke here) Really...If nothing else, it just shows how behind America is compared to other countries in terms of maturity. But then, if it ain't broke..oh. Wait. | |
You do realize that both authors are famous outside of our country. Japan seems to love Hideo Kojima and the guy is crap. We talk all this artistry but you don't see America throwing in perverted moments like Kojima does in his renowned series. Nor did America ever make a rape simulator like Japan once did. I'm by no means defending my country I despise many of the things we do but I hate when people act superior to us just because they don't live here. And please enlighten me on any fantastic writers that have been scorned in this country, tell me what famous film-maker has been scorned in this country. I would like to know. I tire of ignorant people putting themselves above us based solely on what they hear about the country. Come on really, yes America has it's problems, yes we've done a lot of shit but the worst acts are done by the government not the citizens. I'm tired of ignorant people, Yahtzee included. He may be something of an idol for me but it gets annoying when everything is blamed on the US. If he loves Silent Hill 2 so much why doesn't he see where the inspiration comes from, an AMERICAN FILM and an AMERICAN DIRECTOR. We're not all a bunch of uncultured idiots who sit around and do nothing every countrie's mainstream that I know of consists of people similar to the majority of the American's you scorn. | |
But you see, you would never have been able to put that together without playing the game first, and that makes it all irrelevant. Observe.
Here we see the cover art for Bioshock 2. It features a man in a pressurized metal suit, alluding to the game's extraterrestrial setting; the dark background likewise represents the dark void of space. The rugged, dirty filter on the image and the suit's massive drill-arm suggest the main gameplay mechanic: mining asteroids. However, there is another figure on the boxart, the little girl. Her pale skin and otherworldly glowing eyes make it clear that she is paranormal in nature, possibly a ghost. She is perched on the protagonist's back, out of his sight, and holds the tubing of his life-support system in her hand, threatening to tug it out. She is obviously the game's antagonist. The cracked glass represents the shattering of the Fourth Wall, as the characters of the game frequently speak directly to the player. See how that works? It's easy to project all sorts of wild interpretations onto images. All that American covers are trying to convey is that the protagonist is LARGE and POWERFUL and INCLINED TOWARDS VIOLENCE. Almost every American boxart you can find features at least two of the following: 1) a scowling male figure, 2) a sexualized female figure, and 3) a sizable weapon. | |
Well American marketing is looking to sell video games by using aesthetics from "to the American consumer" very well established art context of US mainstream comics. Although the comic industry and the artists are very aware of that fact and are in fact more experimental in their use of "artsy" covers. The artist are also closer to the product in the comic industry, since the art in itself is the product. That level of self awareness hasn't been reached by the market people selling video games. But the test groups are obviously primed towards the comic style covers. They would definitely risk something by trying to sell something with "artsy" covers, but again they are only taking cues from their test groups. | |
Some American box arts are not so bad,like System Shock 2's and Diablo's Beside,have you seen Brazil's Half-life Box art? | |
I think the problem is that many artists either don't play/see the game or don't get to see enough of it. What I think is stupid about both Megaman box arts is that he is hold a gun, but clearly in the game there is no holding of a gun, but a giant energy cannon in place of a hand.
The problem with that is while people still look at screen shots, many of those people(like me) don't particularly like online/digital distribution. The only time I will get a game digitally is if there is no way I can get a CD/hard-copy of the game. I would rather have a nice case(box are really doesn't matter to me) with a CD that I know nothing will happen to it unless I am careless and do something stupid with it. With the digital, there is always the possibility that something will happen that is not within my power stop. While the digital data can be recovered eventually, it is a pain that ass to deal with. Case in point: My friend's 360 of 4 years red ringed. He got a new 360, but when he transferred all the data from the old hard drive to the new one, all his DLC got corrupted. Since it was different 360 it didn't have the licensing rights to the DLC. To get the stuff to work again he has to have his 360 online and also be on a computer with his account signed in for it to see he is the same person, but just with a new 360. The problem is that he doesn't have a good enough Net connection for that. If he wanted to do it he has to wait until he can go over to another friends house that has a good connection, which he had to wait two weeks for. | |
Simple. America always thinks it can do everything better than anyone else can. When called on it, they either put their collective fingers in their collective lugholes and go "La-la-la-la, buddy!". Or they get very angry and threaten to shoot / sue you. Wardy | |
I think American box art is like that because people think that they should cram as much crap into one place as possible. They may give some bullshit answer to say it is more detailed or something. But, lets see, it looks like shit. When I look at a video game's box art, all I am looking for is the title. I think that is mostly because the box art for almost all the games in America just do not catch my interest. I think the only game I bought for the box art was that one that they haven't made yet. | |
Funnily enough, I was reading about this very phenomenon the other day (which TVTropes refers to as the "Floating Head Syndrome"). After reading Yahtzee's article, on a whim I looked through my library of games and movies on my bookshelf. Nearly all of them fit the collage descrption. If they couldn't have the floating heads, then they had an illustration of the action in the game with no hints at the story save maybe the title, with the maximum number of explosions/gunfire (case in point, Mechwarrior 4, Motor Storm, HAWX). The only notable exceptions I found were the following: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: Here we see Ratchet looking out across a huge sci-fi metropolis, contemplating some unknown threat to all of it. Granted, Clank looks like he's having a seizure, but overall it does fit the idea of a small hero contemplating the vastness of his task. World in Conflict: Yes, I realize the regular box art was simply a battle collage. However, I ended up getting the collector's edition, which has a unique box and a variety of special content. This box is a larger, two part box (meaning it opens like a board game box), and the two halves are painted differently. The bottom half is painted in the colors of the American flag and has the game's English name printed there. The top half is mostly red, with the hammer and sickle and the game's name in Cyrillic painted on it. Furthermore, the top half mostly envelops the bottom half, signifying the Soviet Union trying to envelop America in game. I have noticed collector's edition boxes generally seem to be more artistic in a lot of cases than the regular ones, so it seems that in America, you have to pay extra for your art (no surprise). An honorable mention does go to Lost Planet 2, surprisingly. It's more of just a straight battle scene than a collage, but one that does demonstrate the fact that in game, you will be fighting things from the God of War School of Boss Design. Perhaps simply descriptive rather than artsy, but still effective, even if the game itself is lackluster. However, EVERY other game I have either suffers from Floating Head Syndrome on the box, has a battle collage, or some combination of the two. In any case, after looking through these, I really do find myself wishing the box artists in the US could try being a little more inventive. No one I know would describe me as artsy, but it would be nice for once for the companies to at least try and acknowledge that gamers (and the public in general) have an appreciation of something besides explosions and cleavage. Admittedly, that's like demanding Bobby Kotick buy back his soul, but I digress. | |
I didn't know we got to vote on our cover art. . . EDIT: Besides, its just the fucking cover. You get the same product either way, so get off it. | |
Space fish in the background? | |
This comment leads me to inform you that I would gladly have your internet babies. | |
Ouch. Burned! You forgot that we also get half the content cut for fear of upsetting our nannies. Though, they are getting better about that... sorta... okay, they're considering getting better about it. | |
No, just regular fish. | |
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I have no clue why American marketing sucks a big one... I love good box art so much, I bought a copy of the pal version of ICO so it can sit next to my NA version of ICO and look good. | |
Obviously, you've never been to America. Or if you have, you thought you were in Montgomery the whole time. And if you live here, move. Not out of the country, mind you, but somewhere were you aren't surrounded by the ignorant stereotype of American. Like, say, Utah. I love Utah. | |
I never really noticed this difference, but I agree, I really don't like the american box art much, it's all just the same | |
Sarcasm is really hard to get across in this medium. But I'd have a reaction similar to yours if I thought someone meant the same thing seriously, so no harm done. As long as I can remember, video game box art has always been garbage. I've never relied on it to make a purchase. | |
Box art... does it matter? They should be forced to put screen shots on the cover so I can see what the damned games are actually like. | |
Actually I've been to America twice and am a few hours away from booking my flight for this year's jaunt to the States. Ohio this time, for the record. Actually you are right in calling me out but that's the general opinion I get sometimes. Americans try to remake our stuff and generally cock it up (Red Dwarf springs to mind), which is a shame because when they actually come up with their own stuff, it can be pretty funny. Two and a Half Men, for example. Plus a lot of Amercian stand-up comedians could make me laugh at my own mother's funeral (not that she's dead, I was just being hypothetical!). I think they just like to think they can do things better. I had to post a copy of a book to a friend in Florida once. It was a European novel that couldn't get published in the USA because the authour refused to re-write the book to make the hero American. Wardy | |
MY EYES! | |
Its not up too us to choose what the advertisers go with. I will say that its also most likely a cultural difference between the two. As for why amerca hates france, i can honestly say after saving our asses in the american revolution, and us saving thier asses in WWI, WWII, call it even. But personally no offense toward french people but fu** the french government. As an artist i can apreciate both forms and i have wondered a few times about this as well. | |
American culture is obsessed with the hero; we build them up, tear them down, and then enjoy their story of redemption. So we need to see that character on the cover of the game in order to identify with, and conversely, want to buy it. Clearly this doesn't often translate into 'good' box art. | |
That's it, I'm boycotting games with shitty box art. | |
Actually Yahtzee brings up a point that sort of disturbs me. Every single graphics design course i took both online and in college demanded that your designs look good but still be simple enough to relay the message. It always used European box arts and Japanese box arts as examples of the good and American box arts as examples of the bad. | |
Some truth to that. I wager Yahtzee might have enough clout to ask a studio outright and actually get an answer. | |
Except, you know, you read into it wrong. | |
I majored in film in college so I think I can offer possible explanation for shitty American boxart based on first-hand experience. One of the main things I noticed in animation/design classes is that students frequently wanted to do things that "looked cool." People frequently wanted to add more crap to a film, a character design, or an animation just because they thought it looked cool and demonstrated the capabilities of something. I got into more than few arguments during group projects because I typically like to understate things; use less animation, use less clutter, know when to stop drawing something. The other students wanted to do more because "hur hur I think it would be really cool if we inserted this bigger camera movement" or "dur it would look really cool if you added more accessories to this character." In America we have a very shameful (at least I think it's shameful) "more is more" culture. Most shitty American box art is shitty because the designers wanted to slap more shit onto the cover than the European/Japanese cover. They probably did it because they have the standard American more is more mentality. They wanted to make it "cool" and show how much they could do. You can see this in games as well (and this is probably the reason for the awful frat boy shooterification of the entire games industry) the way developers favor "big set pieces" and other general attempts to make games more "cinematic" (which they're not becoming more cinematic, they're just being crammed full extra crap because someone thought it would look cool). It's because the "American dream" revolves around living in excess and making you the centre of the universe (but don't you dare be yourself because we don't want no weirdoes up in here). Shove everything in there because more is more and it's the American way to amass a vast fortune of crap. The same notion bleeds into our mainstream media; put more shit in there because more is more. Keep piling it in because "it would look cooler." I personally like doing more with less and I'm more impressed by that, but other Americans want to see the upper limits of what can be done. They want more/bigger rather than richer/greater. Personally I'm unimpressed with modern graphics as much as cover art. As far as box art goes, everything nowadays looks unbelievably shitty. When I look at old box art, especially old European computer game covers (the Dune II cover is one of my favorite examples), I often get a sense of wonder. Old understated, minimalistic game boxes are haunting and they immediately spark my imagination. Modern American video game boxes all look like some tasteless idiot's attempt to show how much he can do with Photoshop (how much, not how well). With all that in mind, this is just about my favourite video game cover ever: http://www.classicamiga.com/images/stories/jreviews/games/D/artwork/Dune2[boxart][front][01].jpg | |
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After reading the various posts on here, I seem to have come to a sad conclusion: Us Americans only see box art as a bonus, like a art book. I really don't care about the box art myself (guess I have become desentized to the horribleness of it all), but seeing some of the comparasions, I would almost turn my games so I could see some of those covers (the one that springs to mind is the RE4 cover). I have to admit that sometimes, when I have some entertainment money knocking around, I wander down to my local game shop first to see what's available for me to buy. I don't order online, and I rarely preorder (unless the game is extremely popular) because my funds don't allow me to buy all my games brand spanking new. One thing I have seen with the giant wall of games that fly under the radar is that those that have some sort of appealing box art usually (but now always) has a higher quality game inside. I have been mislead a couple of times though (I shortly traded those games in for a better one or pawned it off on my younger sister, lol)
This just makes me sad, and I know that Americans will not change.