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Gamereactor Sweden Removes Ellie (TLOU) From Cover

D

driver116

Member
kubus said:
Time for the Dudebro Edition of The Last of Us.
Click to expand...

I pulled a Gamereactor on you, hope you don't mind?

iN3JncziLwvED.jpg
 
E

Enkidu

Member
kitsuneyo said:
No, it's DEFINITELY sexism. I mean, what other reason could there realistically be?
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Uh, looking at both of them side by side, I prefer the look without Ellie in it too. The fact that one of the covers they let their readers vote for was primarily focused on Ellie makes the sexism claims seem a bit weird. Why would they be sexist in cover alternative 4 but not in alternative 1?
 
moniker

moniker

Member
Varth said:
Well, the other choice has her holding a rifle, untouched.
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Exactly. Neither the "child with gun" or "sexism" theory hold water. Which brings me back to composition - maybe they just thought it looked better without Ellie.
 
V

Varth

Member
Enkidu said:
Uh, looking at both of them side by side, I prefer the look without Ellie in it too. The fact that one of the covers they let their readers vote for was primarily focused on Ellie makes the sexism claims seem a bit weird. Why would they be sexist in cover alternative 4 but not in alternative 1?
Click to expand...

Please note that as far as I know, there's not a layered version of the pack art where Ellie's singled out (just pack and logos, maybe some cropping. Minor stuff, anyway). So you shouldn't think of the matter in terms of "they could have erased Ellie on that too but didn't". The only recent AND fully layered art for the game is that one, and they edited her out.

Also, let me note that the pack art also has a "troublesome" composition mainly for the same reasons of the other one.
 
K

kitsuneyo

Member
So did it turn out that the cover was voted for by readers?

And Varth, by giving magazines art files with removable layers, are you not giving them license to do things like this? It's not like they shopped her out, they just used an option you gave them. This way they have a somewhat unique cover.
 
V

Varth

Member
kitsuneyo said:
So did it turn out that the cover was voted for by readers?

And Varth, by giving magazines art files with removable layers, are you not giving them license to do things like this? It's not like they shopped her out, they just used an option you gave them. This way they have a somewhat unique cover.
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It's not really "an option" just for being there. Some publishers (tipically japanese ones, Bethesda and RS) and some licensed game art usually come with very strict guidelines about what you can or cannot do with your art. For other stuff, even if no agreement was signed or guideline was provided, when you ask for a layered version of an art you basically enter in a gentlemen's agreement with the author and/or dev to limit your input only to the needs of the cover format. Flipping art and moving characters closer to adapt it to our cover format was already invasive stuff to me, but couldn't do it any other way since this was the only unpublished cover art available. Taking out Ellie was never an option. It simply takes the image meaning in a whole different direction as it would have been focusing on Ellie in the boxart cover.

shagg_187 said:
Done and done.
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Not really. It's not like they let them choose including both the edited and the original version or between those.
 
Castle Doctrine

Castle Doctrine

Member
The picture with just Joel is a little better than the one with Joel and Ellie together. If it was my magazine I would have had Just Ellie on the cover similar to the Joel one. I'd compromise and she wouldn't be holding a gun. If marketing nerds or whoever told me the magazine would be less attractive to consumers (particularly young men) with just a girl on the cover I'd ridicule and laugh at them and tell them to go back to their marketing laboratory.

If anything it would be interesting and eye-catching because seeing a young teen girl on a video game cover isn't common.
 
Chittagong

Chittagong

Gold Member
Jinger said:
103.jpg


Crikey, that's a nice cover. Visually striking and the focus is drawn neatly to Joel, then to the bloody pipe, and finally to the game's title and the bludgeoned guy on the ground. Truly a great piece of artwork. I'm not surprised they chose to drop Ellie from the cover. Her in that purple wind breaker distracts from the central image in a big way.
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I agree with this. The cover without Ellie is much more striking and haunting, it represents the loneliness you experience in the game much better - when Ellie is in it feels friendlier and cozier and you might even miss the aftermath at his legs.

That said, Ellie is pretty fundamental to everything so I can see why people feel editing her out is the wrong choice.
 
H

Hydra

Neo Member
Varth said:
Removing her WASN'T the point of the poll. Readers never got the chance to choose the original art over the edited one.
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No, but they had the option to vote for another cover with Ellie on it, thus making it hard to believe the choice had anything to do with sexism.
 
J

jujubeads

Member
1. it looks better without her in it.
2. asking why she was removed when they (apparently) supplied a layered .psd file is funny.
 
V

Varth

Member
patapuf said:
You had covers with Ellie on them.
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The art you're referring to is not available in a layered form (other than the logos and such), so that wasn't their choice.

FR8EVMD.jpg


And BTW: it's not really about sexism to me. As it was mentioned multiple times, it's probably go more to do with kids and guns. It just strikes me as a odd (and unfortunate) choice, as it did with Druckmann.

EDIT
2. asking why she was removed when they (apparently) supplied a layered .psd file is funny.
Click to expand...

Thinking you can do whatever the hell you want with an art regardless of the author's intention or the respect for what it tells just because it's fully layered is way funnier. I guess going by this I could put a huge dildo or a spoon on a Red Dead Redemption art just because RS put the guns in Marston's hand as a separate layer.
 
K

kick51

Banned
-Amon- said:
Wow, gaf looks really obsessed to me with sexism nowadays.
Click to expand...


If you called sexism on 90% of the crap that is called out on this site, you would get laughed out of the room by both men and women.

Which is why I think a lot of the people complaining do most of their socialization on the internet or without women around.
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Man, Neil and crew fight so hard to achieve gender equality in this game, but I've already heard there's some article kind of ragging on the game in how men get preferential treatment in it or something. No idea what it could be about yet as I'm early in the game and Tess is a freaking badass, even more so than Joel, but I would imagine it must be some kind of disappointment for them reading something like that.
 
E

EVIL

Member
I highly doubt this is about gender equality. I suspect they removed Ellie because she is a minor holding a gun.
 
C

CecilRousso

Member
The answer from the editor, Petter Hegevall.

http://www.gamereactor.se/blog/petter/569231/

It was his choice, and he did it because he felt the design became better. He thought that Ellie in that picure looked odd, like the the illustrator had added her to the picure in the last minute, and he says that she was the only one who was in a seperate layer.

Design choice, nothing else.
 
A

Asriel

Member
firehawk12 said:
Yeah, it looks like a composition issue. They removed Ellie and centered Joel to make it more uniform.
Click to expand...

I feel like leaving Ellie in and taking Joel out would have been the better cover.

That said, removing Ellie doesn't make the composition that much more appealing, IMO.
 
C

cubicle47b

Member
After looking at the unedited version it looks like they made a composition choice.

edit: I guess so. I think the area where Ellie was looks awkward. Readers should have chosen cover #1.
 
B

Blasty

Member
It's amazing how some of us jumped to conclusions without knowing any of the facts. Although, I can't say I'm too suprised. I think that the new cover looks better than the original.
 
T

Tummi Gummi

Member
CecilRousso said:
The answer from the editor, Petter Hegevall.

http://www.gamereactor.se/blog/petter/569231/

It was his choice, and he did it because he felt the design became better. He thought that Ellie in that picure looked odd, like the the illustrator had added her to the picure in the last minute, and he says that she was the only one who was in a seperate layer.

Design choice, nothing else.
Click to expand...

I agree with him, the edited one looks better. And they gave readers the chance to use the couple-cover anyway.
 
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