BioShock Infinite

[Thrik]

OK my opinion of the box art just dropped about a thousand levels.

[BigJKO]

Haha, wow. That's shit.

[TychoCelchuuu]

It's probably just the same person getting hired to work on every movie poster and video game box.

[miffy495]

Why hasn't anyone (you all know who) complained about the orange and teal yet? Everything I know is a lie!

[elmuerte]

I really voiced my opinion about the cover

[Thrik]

It's probably just the same person getting hired to work on every movie poster and video game box.

Not very bloody imaginative then is he??

[melmer]

Screenshots n previews and a delayed release date. Now march 26

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2012/12/bioshock-infinite-previews.html?m=1

That building has a monkey face

[syntheticgerbil]

why you gotta bait man why

[Lu]

Those are some beautiful shots! Bring on the ides of March. +10. Ish.

[BigJKO]

Haha, the monkey face..

[ThunderPeel2001]

OK my opinion of the box art just dropped about a thousand levels.

Huh.

As someone who has done this sort of thing for a living for about 10 years, I don't really see this as much of a big "reveal". (Same with the Orange and Teal nonsense.) It's like someone saying, "Watch this movie! See how the music comes up slightly in the background when they're saying something emotional? Now watch this! See how the music gets intense when there's an action sequence?" Or "Look at this painting! See how it uses bright colours and it makes you feel happy? Now look at this one, that's all dark and moody. Makes you feel sad, right?"

It's all just trends in visual language. Different countries have their own trends and fashions (just look up the oddness that is foreign movie posters). Right now, the public sees the devices pointed out in those posters and subconsciously thinks "action!". (Just like you all did when you saw those posters.) Remember how in the 80s all movie posters were illustrated? Actual paintings? Now everything is a photocomp. Even that trend will become passe, and a new one will develop which will seem cool, making the photocomp days seems as old fashioned as illustrated posters. So maybe we have reached the tail end of the "flaming debris" trend -- I personally still think it looks cool, but make no mistake: It's no secret!

Here's another common example of how images are changed to make them look dark and moody. You see this on almost every movie poster, every perfume ad, in every movie, and on every TV show that wants to be taken "seriously". (Up to and including EastEnders.)

Here's an extreme example:

Here's an example I spent two second in Photoshop mocking up:

Here's the original photo...

Here's how it would probably look if it was used in a poster or magazine...

Also: I love how the designer always gets the blame for these things. Any designer will tell you it's the CLIENT who has final say. It's a designer's job to give you what you want, even if we don't like it. And believe me, we often don't like it.

[melmer]

[Thrik]

Huh.

As someone who has done this sort of thing for a living for about 10 years, I don't really see this as much of a big "reveal". (Same with the Orange and Teal nonsense.) It's like someone saying, "Watch this movie! See how the music comes up slightly in the background when they're saying something emotional? Now watch this! See how the music gets intense when there's an action sequence?" Or "Look at this painting! See how it uses bright colours and it makes you feel happy? Now look at this one, that's all dark and moody. Makes you feel sad, right?"

It's all just trends in visual language. Different countries have their own trends and fashions (just look up the oddness that is foreign movie posters). Right now, the public sees the devices pointed out in those posters and subconsciously thinks "action!". (Just like you all did when you saw those posters.) Remember how in the 80s all movie posters were illustrated? Actual paintings? Now everything is a photocomp. Even that trend will become passe, and a new one will develop which will seem cool, making the photocomp days seems as old fashioned as illustrated posters. So maybe we have reached the tail end of the "flaming debris" trend -- I personally still think it looks cool, but make no mistake: It's no secret!

Here's another common example of how images are changed to make them look dark and moody. You see this on almost every movie poster, every perfume ad, in every movie, and on every TV show that wants to be taken "seriously". (Up to and including EastEnders.)

Here's an extreme example:

Here's an example I spent two second in Photoshop mocking up:

Here's the original photo...

Here's how it would probably look if it was used in a poster or magazine...

Also: I love how the designer always gets the blame for these things. Any designer will tell you it's the CLIENT who has final say. It's a designer's job to give you what you want, even if we don't like it. And believe me, we often don't like it.

I understand all this because, well, I'm a designer too. I was only being a git when I said the designer's unimaginative, in reality we have no idea what decisions led to these — could have been a retarded designer saying "This is rad and totally now" or something the client pushed. Who knows. Either way, it's shitty and unoriginal, just like when in my particular field everyone had to have a 'web 2.0' design. Piss off is what I say to such trend whoring.

Broader trends like the old 'desaturate and increase contrast' trick I've been using since I was 15 and orange/real bother me less. They're more just common manifestations of very old principles of tone. This 'sparks/flames at the bottom with debris further up and clouds behind' thing is much more specific and clearly the work of one work essentially copying another.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I understand all this because, well, I'm a designer too. I was only being a git when I said the designer's unimaginative, in reality we have no idea what decisions led to these — could have been a retarded designer saying "This is rad and totally now" or something the client pushed. Who knows. Either way, it's shitty and unoriginal, just like when in my particular field everyone had to have a 'web 2.0' design. Piss off is what I say to such trend whoring.

I've worked in movie poster land for 10 years. I've also worked in web land. They're quite different. In movie poster land, everyone has an opinion -- just like everyone in this thread. In web land, clients can be more forgiving because it's more complicated. No movie distribution company would spend tens of thousands of (insert your currency here) plastering a poster in every city in the country (in addition to the cost of designing it) just because the designer said "This is rad and totally now". They promote movies all day, every day, and know just as much about trends as designers do.

Trying to break the mould and say something that is not only understood by the audience (e.g. "action movie!"), and is current (e.g. "that looks cool!"), but at the same time is completely different is very difficult -- and therefore very risky. So why should they do it? As annoying as client's decisions are sometimes, I do understand them. A movie poster is advertising. It's not there for some designer to self-indulgently wank over and call "art". Just like, as I'm sure you know, only bad web designers try to reinvent the wheel instead of using established design patterns that the user will intuitively understand.

That doesn't mean clients don't make stupid decisions, of course. The number of times I've been frustrated by one, but believe me: They sign off on things to the tiniest detail. It's the client. It's ALWAYS the client.

(Sorry to go off on one, but this just happens to be my field.)

[Thrik]

I've worked in movie poster land for 10 years. I've also worked in web land. They're quite different. In movie poster land, everyone has an opinion -- just like everyone in this thread. In web land, clients can be more forgiving. No distribution house would spend tens of thousands of (insert your currency here) putting out a poster (in addition to the cost of designing it) just because the designer said "This is rad and totally now". They promote movies all day, every day, and know just as much about the trends as designers do.

That doesn't mean they don't stupid decisions, of course, but believe me: They sign off on things to the tiniest detail. It's the client. It's ALWAYS the client.

Depends on the clients. Not that I'm trying to start a pissing contest but the clients I work with measure their profits in billions, and I can assure you that the tiniest details are signed off on and they're not passive shmucks who have nothing useful to contribute like 99% of the small business clients I had to tolerate for years.

We're getting sidetracked here, though. Like I say, regardless of where the idea originated it's an unoriginal one. I have no real sympathy for excessive derivation regardless of medium or circumstances, whether the fault lies with the designer or client. It's shitty and when you put together a graphic like the one above any layman would agree. People not noticing is no excuse for complete unoriginality.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Depends on the clients. Not that I'm trying to start a pissing contest but the clients I work with measure their profits in billions, and I can assure you that the tiniest details are signed off on and they're not passive shmucks who have nothing useful to contribute like 99% of the small business clients I had to tolerate for years.

That's the thing in movie poster land: There are no "small" clients! There's no "Ma and Pa's Movie Distribution". It's not like a local business wants to release a movie to theaters, but they've never done it before, and this is the only one they'll release for years. Even the small companies are big. And, of course, that's what they do all day every day.

(I know of one example, in my ten years, of a completely independently made and distributed movie (no, not Red State) and it was made by this rich girl... and it was horrible. I didn't work on it, but my friend told me it was the worst film he'd ever seen. Really the worst. I think he even tried to tell the client not to release at the cinema -- but they did any way. It was their money, after all. Doubt they saw a profit!)

We're getting sidetracked here, though. Like I say, regardless of where the idea originated it's an unoriginal one. I have no real sympathy for excessive derivation regardless of medium or circumstances, whether the fault lies with the designer or client. It's shitty and when you put together a graphic like the one above any layman would agree. People not noticing is no excuse for complete unoriginality.

You're judging it as ART. It's not art. It's advertising. It doesn't have to be original, and (as it turns out) it's better if it's not: It's important that the viewer gets an idea of what genre a film is just by looking at it. Is it a drama? Is it a horror movie? Is it a comedy? If you took a posters from a given genre, and put them together by adjacent years, you'd see the evolution of commonly used trends. The further you went back, the more dated it would look (obviously). This is language that the audience understands, and if you want an audience to give you money, it's important you speak their language.

I'm not arguing that I wouldn't like to see more creative movie posters (I dearly would, and that's one of the reasons why I decided to move away from them into web development -- it's not going to change any time soon, and I found it very frustrating), but I do understand why clients do what they do. And no, it's not because anyone involved is "retarded" (seriously?). It's a business decision, plain and simple: Spend longer developing something the audience has never seen before -- at a huge risk that Joe Punter and his girlfriend will go, "WTF is that? Let's go see Transformers instead." Or use language you know the audience will understand. Except in very rare circumstances, you'd be very reckless to even try doing something different.

Look at it this way: Only an idiot wouldn't see a movie because the poster had flaming debris on it. But it's very possible that an average person wouldn't see a movie that had a confusing advertising, even if it was artistic. It's a shame, but it's true.

For example: Which of these is more artistic, more original, less derivative? And which of these is more likely to help the film make money?

I wish posters were more interesting and different, but I understand the realities of the movie (and gaming) business.

[Roderick]

Thanks for pointing out the monkey face, Mington.

[youmeyou]

I think it's definitely a risk thing, as thunderpeel points out. The marketing department isn't going to pioritize accurately depicting the content of the game with an original and avant garde piece of artwork. Their solitary goal is to turn eyes in your average Best-Buy or Walmart. And if doing that requires rehashing trends that, while tired, have proven to be successful that's what they're going to do. It would be nice for us, as artists and creative people, if they had put some more effort into making an original and interesting poster, but that would involve a risk of selling less copies in physical stores. That's the calculus, regardless of how I personally want things to be. (which is, i dunno, as creative an approach to the box art as the art direction in the game itself maybe?)

[mikemariano]

Ken Levine Explains BioShock Infinite's Bland Box Art

“We went and did a tour… around to a bunch of, like, frathouses and places like that. People who were gamers. Not people who read IGN. And [we] said, so, have you guys heard of BioShock? not a single one of them had heard of it.”

Ahhh, it's satisfying to be a hater/purist who thinks BioShock 1 was a mindless shooter.

But apparently not mindless enough! BioShock needs to get Bro-ed up, fast!

[TychoCelchuuu]

From the article:

Games are big, and they’re expensive, I think that’s very clear. And to be successful, and to continue to make these kinds of games which frankly, of the people who make these types of games, there’s not a lot of them, and they haven’t exactly been the most successful with these types of games that have come out in the last few years. I was thrilled because I love them, and I hope that we had some small role in getting those games greenlit… But they have to be financially successful to keep getting made.

They have to be financially successful to keep getting made, so clearly the best route is "let's make our game appeal to the masses" rather than "maybe every game doesn't have to be a photorealistic multimillion dollar production. When the only games you can imagine making are AAA games, then the only games you can imagine making are going to have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I guess if it's a matter of tweaking box art then who gives a shit, but it's hard to imagine this sort of thing doesn't creep into game design. We're 18 years past System Shock and almost nobody is making games anywhere near that detailed anymore. Thank god for indie games, which have ambitions the size of the moon and realistic expectations and budgets to fit those ambitions, rather than things like Infinite, which, for all their "1999 mode" shenanigans, are far from the ambition of those games of the past, because those kind of ambitions entail a kind of complexity that your average person isn't really looking for.

Basically, I like video games more when they don't need their box art to look like the film posters for big budget movies. I like video games when, to break even, they only need to sell copies to the people who appreciate the interesting stuff, even if it doesn't look photorealistic and even if it doesn't have an orchestral soundtrack and hours of professional voice acting.

[youmeyou]

I find it hard to look at what we've seen of Bioshock infinite and fault it for not being ambitious. The real test will be whether or not it lives up to the ambition of its creators (which I imagine is why they keep pushing the release date back).

I appreciate Levine being frank about his thinking behind the box art and it's pretty much what I expected. If the game is good, we (the enthusiast demographic) will be happy. And they will have made more money from casual consumers to continue to make good games. I really don't see what's wrong with this equation. If the game is negatively effected by needing to appeal to a broad base, then we should criticize it for that. But that clearly remains to be seen.

[Frenetic Pony]

Personally I think the problem here is exactly what Levine did. "There's only ONE video game market, and BY GOD we are going to sell to them!"

Not one has heard of Bioshock, obviously Bioshock one was a horrid failure! Why are you trying to sell to people that don't have any interest in it? More people play video games today than watch blockbuster movies if Angry Birds and Zynga's numbers are anything to go by. And how many play hardcore games? Isn't the LOMA audience alone like 40+ million strong? I'm certain that even for a shooter there's a solid market that isn't some fratboy bro-house that is only ever going to buy Call of Duty anyway.

But no, video game marketing still thinks there's only one single audience for these things. And if it doesn't appeal to the mysognistic 12-21 year old then who else could possibly buy the game? Better make sure to put some stripper nuns in or you aren't going to see a dime!

[ThunderPeel2001]

So none of the people here who dislike the boxart are going to buy the game then? :-/

[Sno]

I feel like there is a vast difference between trying to appeal to a broader audience and trying to find acceptance in a broader audience. It will be the difference between whether they compromised their game for that potential audience, or if they're simply trying to get that audience to give their game a chance.

I think you guys are forgetting what a lot of the marketing for the first BioShock looked like, it was pretty terrible and it certainly didn't reflect how that game turned out. It completely emphasized the guns and the action, it was the "genetically enhanced first-person shooter".

[I_smell]

Ken Levine talks about this boxart.

“I looked at the cover art for BioShock 1, which I was heavily involved with and love, I adored. And I tried to step back and say, if I’m just some guy, some frat guy, I love games but don’t pay attention to them… if I saw the cover of that box, what would I think? And I would think, this is a game about a robot and a little girl. That’s what I would think. I was trying to be honest with myself. Trust me, I was heavily involved with the creation of those characters and I love them.”

“Would I buy that game if I had 60 bucks and I bought three games a year… would I even pick up the box? I went back to the box for System Shock 1, which was obviously incredibly imporatnt — that game was incredibly influential on me, System Shock 2 was the first game I ever made. I remember I picked it up… looked at it and I said, I have no idea what this game is. And I didn’t have a lot of money back then. So, back on the shelf. And I was a gamer.”

Yea I hope you're happy Kotaku, NeoGaf, 4chan etc! You've actually made this company come out and EXPLAIN it's boxart ya weird jerks.

You suck, Video game fans.