Game cover designs

[elmuerte]

Inspired by the following tweet of Chris Remo: http://twitter.com/chrisremo/status/25059043037

  Quote

Though I've not played it, Ultima VII has one of my favorite covers of all time. So damn cool. You could never do it now. http://j.mp/97NWZG

What are your favorite game cover designs?

It looks like most games have the same cover design with a picture of a lead character in the middle and the title at the top or bottom.

[Roderick]

Actually, covers like Ultima VII (I assume their main feature being 'no discernable features') have appeared, but almost exclusively as collector's editions of games whose normal editions had 'normal' covers with graphics.

I'm thinking here of the Oblivion CE, the World of Warcraft CE's, Bioshock... So designers still think it's cool, they just can't risk people being put off in stores by not immediately knowing what's going on in the game.

With really well-known properties (Resident Evil) sometimes they don't put text or explanations on the back, just a big juicy quote like 'EVIL NEVER SLEEPS' or somesuch. That's ballsy too.

[Nappi]

[Chuckpebble]

  Nappi said:

Ico Cover

That's a good one actually. I wish I paid more attention in art history classes so I could name the artist that image reminds me of.

I always liked this though I never played it either.

[toblix]

When I was young(er) I liked the covers where they had drawn lots of stuff that happened in the game, like the one for Lemmings. I guess I don't pay as much attention to covers these days, since getting a new game is no big deal (as a boy I'd always study every little screenshot and info-box), they're more standardized (i.e. less interesting) and I mostly buy them digitally.

But yeah, the Ico one is nice, and the Ultima VII one is just badass. "I'm a sweet game, and you will play me."

[Kolzig]

Old 90's games had some sweet covers.

Many looked like paintings instead of the quick photoshopped crap like it is these days very often.

Old Lucasarts covers were cool and I have always thought that Kyrandia 1 had a great cover.

Remo's example is excellent, I used to have Ultima VII Black Gate on my shelf, it was quite awesome to look at. If you didn't know what Ultima is, you would think "What the hell is this black beauty of a box, I must find out!"

Ico is really unique and simply beautiful cover, but it also is a very basic example of how not to do a worldwide release for a game, they used totally different cover in US like many of you know.

[Nevsky]

I suppose it's worth chucking in a link to Box Art, Simon Parkin's Tumblr with plenty of ace game cover artwork.

[toblix]

  Kolzig said:

Ico is really unique and simply beautiful cover, but it also is a very basic example of how not to do a worldwide release for a game, they used totally different cover in US like many of you know.

Best example:

[Raff]

I love the Odama box art...

The Japanese one was beautiful too, doesn't come accross from this image. It's all shiny and embossed as well as being the usual dinky size. It came with a microphone so it's a fat cardboad thing with different art on each side.

[Nappi]

  Chuckpebble said:

That's a good one actually. I wish I paid more attention in art history classes so I could name the artist that image reminds me of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nostalgia_of_the_Infinite

[Thompson]

  Rodi said:

the World of Warcraft CE's

This.

BC

WotLK

Cataclysm

also, while not a game the box art for Adobe CS5 Master Collection is awesome.

[Lama Himself]

I really fell in love with the covers from Accolade games thanks to this Panic blog post:

http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/02/accolades-amazing-box-art/

[CaptainFish]

  toblix said:

Best example:

(Settlers 7 images)

Isn't that example particularly duplicitous because the original art actually represents the art style of the characters in game?

I really liked the God Hand prototype art:

That image is really big so click zoom and open it if you want to get a good look.

Without box information:

But they went with these less good images:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/ps2/god-hand/cover-art

[Lu]

Love these.

Edited September 22, 2010 by PiratePooAndHisBattleship

[CaptainFish]

Now I'm just trawling around looking for sweet art.

I think this Marble Madness art looks nice:

It brings into relief how much I don't know about making computer generated art in 1986. This looks like it would be hard to make now let alone in '86. Did they just airbrush a picture of marbles on an actual set? Even so it looks really precise.

I also really like the Genesis/NES Klax art.

I just like the idea that they created a Klax hand sign, so that when you're deep into a level of Klax and someone comes up to ask you what you're doing, or your mom asks you to come to dinner or go to bed, you can respond without taking your eyes off the screen. It is the nineties indeed.

[vimes]

I like grim fandango cover/dvd splicase the most.

On Collector's Edition - this is a bit off topic since I'll take Movie DVD as an example.

I'm not a big fan of the statues/helmet/batarang in big box; and I wish publishers were still into the digipak format ... now, the trendy thing is embossed 'tin case' (?). It worked for Bioshock; but it didn't really fit Uncharted 2 SE... and a bunch of other stuff.

The world of cover is apparently pretty strange : a friend of mine used to work at Disney France and participated in the early collector's editions published in 2000ish; and they were fantastic. It's not fine art, but it's way better than what we usually get outside the Criterion Collection.

He apparently also had a hand in the gloriousFrench version of Roger Rabbit SE

and the marvelous Peter Pan SE

But apparently, the cover were so classy, that they confused parents away since they didn't get it was a kid movie... So at first, they removed the classy concept art and replaced it with bullshit art

vs

Then they dumbed down the Disc art...

And finally they switched to the 'cardboard sleeve with traditionnal' dvd format with 'rainbow effect layer' on top of it.

Berk.

[Salacious Snake]

All the Roger Dean covers for Psygnosis games are wonderful.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=node/435

[Hermie]

I really like the cardboard sleeve for Brawl:

And the Japanese Other M cover was pretty damn sweet.

[Patters]

The Reach limited edition is really nice

Board game art is that bit more interesting to me, in the same way vinyl art is more interesting to CD booklets.

Also the Imperial 2030 cover is so bad it's brilliant.

I also quite like the art for the upcoming Civilization board game.

[elmuerte]

I think they try to put way too much crud on the covers in general. I prefer to have it more simple.

The Evil Genius cover is actually quite nice:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/evil-genius/cover-art/gameCoverId,57703/

It actually tells you a bit about the game, i.e. you being a evil puppet master.

The insides of the special edition for UT2004 is also quite nice:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/unreal-tournament-2004-dvd-special-edition/cover-art/gameCoverId,31072/

It's simple and clean.

[Orv]

  elmuerte said:

The Evil Genius cover is actually quite nice:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/evil-genius/cover-art/gameCoverId,57703/

.

Every piece of artistic direction in/on/related to Evil Genius is absolutely superb.

[Chuckpebble]

  Nappi said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nostalgia_of_the_Infinite

YESHhhhhhhh.

Thankyou!

[Nachimir]

  elmuerte said:

The Evil Genius cover is actually quite nice:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/evil-genius/cover-art/gameCoverId,57703/

Evil Genius had some of the finest art (in general) I'd ever seen at the time

On bad boardgame art, Canal Mania is pretty bad, namely because if you cover the C it looks like something very different is going on:

The original Katamari Damacy has a great cover though:

(Full piece)

[Chris]

  Rodi said:

Actually, covers like Ultima VII (I assume their main feature being 'no discernable features') have appeared, but almost exclusively as collector's editions of games whose normal editions had 'normal' covers with graphics.

I'm thinking here of the Oblivion CE, the World of Warcraft CE's, Bioshock... So designers still think it's cool, they just can't risk people being put off in stores by not immediately knowing what's going on in the game.

With really well-known properties (Resident Evil) sometimes they don't put text or explanations on the back, just a big juicy quote like 'EVIL NEVER SLEEPS' or somesuch. That's ballsy too.

Not the same thing. All those other games you mention DO have discernible features. The Oblivion one has a big symbol in the middle, and the box is "textured" to look like canvas or something, plus there are logos and badges all over it. The World of Warcraft ones all have huge stylized game logos in the middle and are also made to look like specific materials evoking the theme of the game or expansion (for example, Cataclysm looks like lava flowing under stone). BioShock's is meant to look like a steel embossed underwater plaque or something, and again, like these others, it has a huge stylized logo in the middle of it.

There are a few key differences between those and Ultima VII. Ultima VII's box has a very understated logo treatment. The "Ultima VII" part is just the "Ultima font," and, more awesomely, "The Black Gate" is presented in nothing more ornate than a simple elegant sans-serif typeface. The text is even presented in a dark, muted color over a dark background, keeping it from popping out too much and distracting from the overall effect.

The box also isn't made to look like some kind of texture or material. It's just flat black, and that's it. It's not supposed to look like "black something," it's an absence of material.

There's also only a single studio logo, small and centered at the bottom, and it's not full of obnoxious graphics. There's probably no way around this these days, which is garbage. Blizzard's CEs come the closest but they still are mandated to have that dumb ESRB thing. Oblivion's is the worst, it's full of all kind of "BEST OF SHOW!!" nonsense, and with ANY console game you'll never get rid of the huge branding stripe.

Like I was saying, you can't do it properly now. It just isn't physically possible if you want to go through any remotely legitimate distribution channel. Ultima VII was actually on store shelves. It could never be on store shelves in that form today.

The most important difference, though, is in the composition. In every single other one of those box covers, the big ornate game logo treatment is right in the middle of the box; it's the centerpiece. Every single one of those other game covers can be described as "Whoa, awesome-looking symbol thing!" The designer of the Ultima VII box left the actual center of the image completely blank. The main subject of the box is the absence of an image.

[Salacious Snake]

One workaround for the logo explosion that you'll see employed sometimes is to have a transparent outer sleeve which contains all the obligatory graphics and can be removed prior to enshrining the box on your mantlepiece.