Game Packaging Sucks

[Salka]

If you look at a shelf full of console games... not only are they all War Games, Sims, or lame Sports titles... but they all have the same colour box. Especially the war games! It's ridiculous! Why is nobody capable of designing packaging that's not like everything else!? Last weekend I sorted all the Xbox games out in order of colour... a big, ugly mass of Browns and Greys for the War games, white, pale and bland colours for the Sports titles... it looked completely ridiculous. And the PS2 shelf of new releases looks like DVD Case Vomit with little bits of Sony logo in it.

Psychonauts is going to stick out like a sore thumb of joy when it eventually reaches these shores. But this thread isn't about Psychonauts. This thread is about how relatively uninspired pretty much every game box is at the moment.

There's no clever use of colour to attract people's eyes to their games, no eye-candy designs or even memorable logos. The War Games have pictures of soldiers. The Sims have pictures of ... sims. The Sports Games have pictures of Tiger Woods. Then there's a whole chunk of games that have women, or cars, or cars with women standing besides them or lying across them.

Except for Psychonauts, I mean.

[netmonkey]

Also, how come the "hero" must have an (sometimes) awesome pose and the title on top? not that Psychonauts is any different, but at least it has a box art instead of a cg render of the hero very cheesily and junk.

But it's not as bad as dvd movie covers.. my (least) favorite is the formula where two or three main characters are put in the cover of the box in an order, but the names of the actors in the opposite orders. ie, say that Adam Sandler is on the right side, then his name MUST be on the left side.

[MrHoatzin]

I really think the current game box fad of putting ten year old boys squarely on top of a giant brain is hideous, lame, and sinful. Where has all the originality gone, I ask you, where?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Psychonauts is going to stick out like a sore thumb of joy when it eventually reaches these shores. But this thread isn't about Psychonauts. This thread is about how relatively uninspired pretty much every game box is at the moment.

Sorry to piss on your parade, but IMO the art for the Psychonauts package is too muddy, predictable, and vague to get much notice on the store shelves. Conceptually it's really no different from many other box art. The formula is cookie cutter and is typical of the techniques you're taught in school - show the hero in the center with the supporting characters and villains in the backgound framing him. How is that different from a Harlequin Romance novel or any pulp sci-fi fiction paperback at the bookstore?

Thus far, for me, there have been very few games with strong box art that you can spot from two aisles away. Hitman 2 has quite a strong visual draw in its minimalistic design, it communicates exactly what you're gonna get succintly, and its simplicity in design shoves it front and center compared to all the other overdesigned box art. Half-Life 2 doesn't need 10,000 things on its box, it's confident enough to draw on its past reputation and the strength of its hero, thus a more intimate, portrait style rendition of him, instantly recognizable, and again, very simple.

[Salka]

I don't know. I've only seen pictures of the Psychonauts box art... that sounds ridiculous, but I really want to see it ON the actual BOX before I pass judgement on it. I mean, too much judgement. But I like the colours and the art, which as Netmonkey mentioned, isn't just 3D rendered shtuff. I think I'm going to like it a lot, and at the very least, it's going to stand out amongst the other Xbox games. Which are predominantly brown.

I very much liked the designs of old, such as the Monkey Island 1 and 2 boxes and the DOTT box, which I still remember clearly although I haven't seen them in ten years. Gosh, I don't mean to start whining about how game boxes used to be better, but I wish that level of love and care was put into the packaging now.

P.S. I can't think of the HL2 box art offhand, but I can definitely say I don't like the Hitman box. I admit that it's quite effective in it's simplicity, but I don't like it. It's ugly, bland, boring.

[MrHoatzin]

Ah, Trep, please! Give me better examples than those two. They are both quite generic. Hitman looks like any samurai movie poster, while Half-Life 2's box looks a) like a celebration of anal detail that went into their character models, like all Warcraft boxes ever.

[Dingo Chavez]

Very few invest in box art design, and it's quite sad. The box art is the first impression that the gamer gets from the game, you can't just stick the lead character in a jodo pose, or put a large breasted women in a very small bra, wearing only a tiny yellow jacket so small and tight that it won't fit a mere child, I bet they're wearing a thong under those hot-pants, oh yeah, that's hot...

What were we talking about?

Oh yes... box art design. The only companies that seem to invest in that important and underappreciated department is Nintendo and Double Fine. I really like the Wind Waker's box, on a sunny day you can take it outside, and with a proper aiming to the sun you can blind drivers passing by, causing humorous accidents. Good times.

Psychonauts in also quite a nice example, real artwork and not CG (not that I've seen it with my own eyes, but I naturally assume that it's nice). As an inspired illustrator (maybe in a few years) there's nothing more satisfying than great hand made box art, it's the way god intended.

Mr. T: That was you who blinded me that day, Dingo! Say goodbye to your liver, FOOL!

[pj-]

I'm partial to white backgrounded box arts..

Yummerz

[JoeX111]

Also, on the topic of the Psychonauts box art....

The following may contain spoilers, though those of you who have played the demo should probably already know this, though this is based on my opinion having not played the full game yet.

Just based on the box art alone, I figured that the Coach would probably be evil, or at least working with the mad scientist bent on global domination in some way \ shape \ form. The fact that he is separated from the other counselors and made more prominent on the box rather lends itself to that idea.

[MrHoatzin]

Also, on the topic of the Psychonauts box art....

The following may contain spoilers, though those of you who have played the demo should probably already know this, though this is based on my opinion having not played the full game yet.

Just based on the box art alone, I figured that the Coach would probably be evil, or at least working with the mad scientist bent on global domination in some way \ shape \ form. The fact that he is separated from the other counselors and made more prominent on the box rather lends itself to that idea.

Sasha and Milla are a famous Psychonaut team. Oleander is just the coach of the camp. Your idea is ludicrous, sir! Ludicrous!

[JoeX111]

Yeah, and he totally doesn't look

evil

there at all.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Ah, Trep, please! Give me better examples than those two.

I can't. Because there aren't.

[MrChlorophyll]

The Best Buy up here by the college has some very eye-catching boxes. Those being the massive (seriously, frickin' huge) boxes of... wait for it... Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider 2. Above half of a single shelving unit is taken up by those boat anchors. Oh, and they're $2.99 a piece, by the way.

Now, I'm no expert...

[Nick]

Just throwing some boxes in...

[BaconIsGood4You]

Most are not great. But there are some gems.

And the two European European boxart's for Alien Hominid which I could not find a link too even though I could find the pictures...

[n0wak]

Even worse than lousy box art is relatively decent (the precedent for what is "decent" is pretty damned low in this industry) box art smeared with some lame quote or ugly review or promo garbage (ala Psychonauts, or, worst of all, Ikaruga )

North American box art is the worst of the territories, though. Really attrocious at times... even when they have perfectly good art to draw from a game's Japanese release. I mention this one particular piece of box art so often, it has secured a permanent stop on my server, ever ready to be thrown out on a whim

Compare that to the North American release...

[Chris]

The original Ico box art is pretty much my favorite thing in the world.

[Tanukitsune]

Gish has a boxed edition?

[Kolzig]

I was wondering about that too.

I thought Gish is only sold through Chronic Logic as a web download.

[Tanukitsune]

I bought the CD version and got it in a plastic sleeve...

[QueZTone]

DVD case packaging for games sucks anyway...

The box used to be part of the game experience, these days its not anymore. There used to be extensive manuals that came with good games, that time has passed. A digital manual is all you get now, if any at all. I didn't mind the change to dvd sized cartboard boxes for games (like Syberia 1/2) but then they made them DVD cases and that just sucks downright. What's special about a bought game these days? It's not that much different from a pirated copy with a dvd cover printed now.

[vimes]

The DVD Box format isn't really a problem : if they went the digipack way, we would have great packagings like the ones the DVD market (at least in France) propose.

[Tanukitsune]

I don't know why everybody is so anti DVD cases, don't they have a cover like boxed game too?

The only boxed games I've seen lately, apart from the ones in the budget bin, are Colllector's Edition, but they only have boxes because the extras inside (t-shirts, game guides, artwork books) wouldn't fit in a DVD case...

Of course some of the boxes were different, and had special effects (3D covers, you could open them up like a book) but those were only a few anyway and they do that anymore...

I think you guys are being nostalgic, just because a game comes in a giant box doesn't mean it's better, sometimes Europes gets a better cover than the US boxed game, and viceversa, the artwork isn't "ruined" just beacuse it' on a smaller "canvas"....

How can you say they no different from a pirated copy QueZTone? When the game store in town I lived was going to close they had a clearence sale and I ended with several used games, some didn't even ahve the original DVD case and boy could you tell the difference!

And don't complain about the PDF manuals, PDF manuls reduce the games cost, most of the games I have with PDF manuals are from the budget bin....

Many of the old boxed games were pieces of art but lots of them were annoying and dull, I just hated a giant box, with a tiny manual and a disk...

The days of boxed games are over in Europe, since the Nintendo DS games come in cases too and I can only assume PSP ones will too, face it, accept and deal with it!

[RLacey]

I much prefer a DVD case, with the manual immediately to hand, then the crap I've received whenever I've imported anything American - a cardboard box with some paper sleeves containing the CDs. Is that the way to treat an expensive new game? PAPER SLEEVES!!??

[QueZTone]

Basically what you're saying is "games dont come in boxes anymore, so just accept it"

The fact games don't (or hardly) come in a box anymore doesn't mean that's a good thing and you have to accept it. And about the argument of that it saves money: that's true but consumers don't get their games any cheaper. Games haven't become cheaper or pricey-er with the change of box format.

What I'm arguing here is that the Game Experience used to go from looking at the extensive boxart, unwrapping the box, looking through the manuals and special booklets to installing and eventually playing the game. By using DVD covers you take away part of the Game Experience. There is no space for special box contents, your hands aren't filled with coverart; you need a spyglass to look at the screens on the back of the case for crying out loud.

Gameboxes enrich the Gaming Experience.