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The importance of cover art.

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
The importance of cover art.

Always, before playing something, due to the lack of social networks or the lack of information, it was important to see the quality of a game, from its cover.

Even though they are games that do not reach the West, I always really like the covers, where they reveal Mystery, Drama or special situations.

I like it when sunsets or sunrises are revealed in games.

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kingdom-come-deliverance-royal-edition-793291.21.jpg


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Any games that have an impact the attention of players?
 
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jakinov

Member
I want to gamestop when I was younger and despite being an avid IGN visitor at the time and knowing about most of the big new games. There was one game that when I saw at the store, the cover art really drew me in and was basicallly the reason I played it despite never seeing gameplay before.


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Darkkahn

Member
I only buy the games if it has a white dude with a gun on the cover.

Black dude is also fine.

Could also be a women, but there has to be a gun at least!
What if it's a concealed gun? Like you see a bulge in the vicinity of a guy's hip but it's behind a coat.
 
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This was an issue of the past, not one of the present. In general, you know about software long before you even see a concept of cover art now. Digital or physical, you know what you are purchasing before you buy it. You know who made it, you know how it runs, you know what it looks like, etc.

Also, I'd say companies generally don't care if you "like" it, but want to know if it makes you want to purchase or drives you to look into making a purchase.
 
Like in horror films for Makeup effects too much CGI is used and that's the case for game covers :(. Not that it makes much difference really.
Some Japanese Mega-CD games have amazing covers and top quality colour scans on the actual disc, but play like crap.
 
It's fairly important I'd say. I've played and bought lots of games (good and bad) just based on their box art.

Heck, I've picked up yesterday Mato Anomalies just because it had a nice cover art (I know the game is rather mid but it doesn't bother me and the price for the physical was cheap enough). :p

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kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
80's/90's had the best cover art. It was half the game to me back then.

Man this so much. Especially in the 8-bit home computer era (C64, Atari 800). Here in Europe we had mainly budget tape games with this amazing airbrushed covers that made my imagination run wild, because I usuallu had no idea about what game it was. And yes the games usually sucked but I'm still such a sucker for these covers.

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Activision also did a run of cool covers in that era.

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Mattyp

Gold Member
Cover art was extremely important in the 90s, this was when you had no internet relied on the monthly magazine that usually sugar coated things anyway.

Amount of times stung by bad simpsons or Batman games on Friday night rental was comical. The kids who could afford to buy games would of been stung even worse.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
Yeah it doesn't matter that much these days. I'm constantly amazed how shitty some cover arts can be or how uninspiring are the screeenshots on the back cover. They're supposed to picture the game at its best ffs.
 

Robb

Gold Member
There’s a lot of great stuff out there.

I personally really love when the cover manages to encapsulates the theme of the game. I really love the NA BotW box, even more so after playing the game because it really captures the BotW adventure vibe of climbing to a high point and just looking out from above to find landmarks.

I have no idea why they felt the need to change it in the EU release..
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nkarafo

Member
I remember this bothering me because the logo is flipped.

That's like a pretty major mistake an artist can do in an advert. But this one seems deliberate because they also flipped it on the title logo.

I wonder why they would do that. It's not like they didn't have the license to use the logo, did they?
 
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killatopak

Member
I have bought games before simply because I thought the cover art was amazing.

I think I saw Demons’ Souls deluxe edition cover and thought that’s cool.
 

nkarafo

Member
or how uninspiring are the screeenshots on the back cover. They're supposed to picture the game at its best ffs.
You are expecting the advertisers to know about videogames and understand which part is the best to capture. Or the publishers to bother and provide those assets themselves.
 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
I remember this bothering me because the logo is flipped.

That's like a pretty major mistake an artist can do in an advert. But this one seems deliberate because they also flipped it on the title logo.

I wonder why they would do that. It's not like they didn't have the license to use the logo, did they?

WTF i never noticed that until now... the one I own I the Atari 800 version which also has it wrong, while the 2600 version has it correctly. The title screens do have it the right way too.
 

nush

Member
Ninja_Cop_cover.png


Damn this looks shit I thought when I saw it on the shelf.

Only Konami logo made me pick it up and look at the back. Sold!
 
In this digital (marketplace) era, my focus has shifted towards a good gameplay trailer and a quick scan through positive and negative user reviews.
I still appreciate good cover art, but it has definitely lost it's impact on me. Another reason is that I mainly play small/indie releases, sometimes still in EA, and cover art just isn't an important focus of these devs, while the gameplay can be amazing.
Here are some examples based in order of recent gaming time spent. Not the most enticing art, yet top notch quality gameplay:
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7UsQlL6.jpg

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ReBurn

Gold Member
After having grown up in the days of Atari 2600 I always assume that the cover art is a blatant lie and has no bearing on the quality of the game inside.
 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
In this digital (marketplace) era, my focus has shifted towards a good gameplay trailer and a quick scan through positive and negative user reviews.
I still appreciate good cover art, but it has definitely lost it's impact on me. Another reason is that I mainly play small/indie releases, sometimes still in EA, and cover art just isn't an important focus of these devs, while the gameplay can be amazing.
Here are some examples based in order of recent gaming time spent. Not the most enticing art, yet top notch quality gameplay:
0t8hPyD.jpg

7UsQlL6.jpg

TQ5rLvw.jpg

8HXxres.jpg


Digital marketplace. EA standing for Early Access and not
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, "biomes" instead of levels, bunch of crappy looking banners.

We are polar opposites my friend, and that's cool because there is enough going around for everyone!
 
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