Bioshock Infinite: The latest victim of the Stupid-American-Box-Art Virus.

[Nonomori]

Don't judge a book by its cover?

Nobody is saying that the game is bad.

Indeed, so why would the box art matter?

It's hard to see that way, but besides being part of the marketing campaign, cover art is art, as well as the game itself. Of course, it won't stop anyone from buying and enjoying the new Bioshock, but everyone has the right to criticize a generic, boring box art.

I'm not denying that people have the right to complain about that, I'm just stating my oppinion that the box art doesn't really matter for a game.

From a commercial point of view, the box art is very important, and I'm sure you can understand that.

But we're not making money from Bioshock! The worst thing that can happen is to misrepresent the game and/or be uninteresting to potential consumers who are not looking for Generic Shooter 3: The Shotgun Strikes Back.

 

[roushutsu]

Yeah it's a generic image and I personally would have loved to see Elizabeth in the shot with him or maybe an action flying pose with that rail contraption of his, but sadly the "stoic-looking guy with a gun and explosions" image is the kind of image that's popular and sells so that's what they're gonna use. Good ol' marketing.

 

[Thyunda]

Yeah it's a generic image and I personally would have loved to see Elizabeth in the shot with him or maybe an action flying pose with that rail contraption of his, but sadly the "stoic-looking guy with a gun and explosions" image is the kind of image that's popular and sells so that's what they're gonna use. Good ol' marketing.

Stoic? Suave is definitely the correct word.

 

[Legendairy314]

Pretty obvious reason: Market appeal. We all know Infinite is gonna be more than another MMS and this box art still hints at it. But, if you're gonna cast the net (which is what box art essentially does) casting one big net is much better than a smaller, more refined one. It doesn't affect the content of the game itself and is just there to boost sales figures. Besides, attracting more people to what will probably be one of the better games of 2013 isn't a bad thing.

Maybe it doesn't affect me as much because of all the knowledge I've acquired of the game beforehand but I do feel that it fits pretty well with the "Beast of America" trailer. The stance he's taking is stupid, sure, but with this cover you still see a blunderbuss, burning flag, and blimp. I'm getting a Spec Ops vibe where it may be disguising itself to draw people in and then deceive with a more engaging story then people might realize.

 

[sneakypenguin]

I like it, just from a glance you can tell its an action FPS, set in a fantasy world, with political overtones. Seems to tell the story of the game pretty well. You could go with a more enigmatic cover but I doubt it would portray the game at a glance for the uninitiated which I assume box art is mainly for.

 

[Jaeke]

Hey guys let's blame America on a picture we'll look at for about a 2 second interval and then complain on the internet about how stupid it is.

Because, hey, that is just stupid!...
Right?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Why not one of these instead?
Then again, hopefully with being European, I won't have to look at that cover.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Oh my, that first one does look mightily spiffy. I wonder if there's a high res version of that image on the cover available. I'd be tempted to just make my own.

Spoiler: Or failing that, maybe use this

 

[Paragon Fury]

American Boxart

Japanese Boxart

Thank god I live in the UK where many games have the Japanese cover. Although Japan does have more cartoon tits though.

Thank god for Japan.

Don't ever lose that special touch you've got.

 

[Xdeser2]

.......Who cares?

Does any sane gamer really buy a game based on its boxart?

 

[PirateRose]

The box art is everything. Of course many smart gamers don't buy a game based on it's cover, but others do buy based on the cover. It's for the impulse buyers who buy a game just based on the promise of a cliche dude with a gun. Also the uneducated parents who don't know what their kids are playing, they just buy because there's a cliche dude on the cover with a gun and they know their stupid kids like that stuff. Then these types of people are stuck with the game because they can't return it when they find out it's not to their liking, all they can do is take it to gamestop for half the price.

The problem is this sort of thing is beginning to backfire, because how can they stand out to someone who buys a game based on it's cover, when all the games look exactly the same. They're confusing the already very stupid consumers.

 

[Sande45]

I think you can make any type of cover art work by doing it right. So protagonist with a gun and a serious look on his face doesn't automatically equal a bad cover. I actually think it's a pretty nice looking box art. You can't get much better than that in the "guy with a gun" sub genre of box art. Having said that, I agree that it is a very generic choice (and Infinite is pretty damn far from generic) and they could have done much better.

 

[Twilight_guy]

The box art isn't for people who know what the game is about, the box art is to attract people who don't know what the game is about. American's respond better to the power fantasy created by this box art then to a more surreal or intriguing box art (or at least that's apparently what the survey's show).

 

[chadachada123]

Wow I just had a proper look and so much stuff is "man looking cool" even without guns. Darksiders 2, Dark Souls, Dishonoured, Borderlands 2 (I always disliked the Borderlands guy who tries to look crazy on the front) Mass Effect 3 etc etc maybe because quite a lot of main characters are male? So it's all guys looking badass all day.

Dark Souls's American cover annoys me to no end. It's so...bland and boring and "hurr cool-looking." It conveys absolutely zero emotion, while the Japanese cover gives you an immediate sense of just how isolated you are in the game.

American cover:

Japanese cover:

As for Borderlands, honestly, I thought that the bandit cover from the first game was pretty original. A bandit shooting himself in the head with his gun-shaped hand, with the blood splatter out of his brain showing some action inside. Hell, the sequel took the first cover and added some more to it, to good effect, in my opinion. Two gun gestures on both sides of his head? What it loses in creativity, it gains in legitimacy.

It really is unique, the cell-shading mixed with a pose you wouldn't expect to see on a normal game cover.

Edit: Does anyone know how to make the large image smaller?

Double edit: On topic, like with the American cover of Dark Souls, it feels as if the Bioshock Infinite cover is essentially lying to consumers, since the cover doesn't at all convey the theme or feel of the game. Sure, it's fine that those that were already going to buy it are still going to get it, but it just feels so...dishonest.

 

[TheTim]

I'm not seeing the problem here, Looks interesting enough to me.

 

[Major_Tom]

At least it doesn't have Let's-waste-resources-on-unnecessary-multiplayer Virus. I don't give a rat's ass about the box art.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

It's pretty horrible and for me personally, it's a major turnoff.

I bought the first Bioshock not really knowing what I got myself into. It just looked and sounded like something pretty new, and interesting enough to want and grope at and play around with. I found it to be one of the best experiences since, say, Halflife 2. Shooty-shooty stuff, a story worth mentioning, some twists, some unexpected moments, a bunch of so-so ending, but the ride was very well worth the price of admission. The box cover you ask? If I remember correctly, 'twas just some rendering of a Big Daddy of sorts? Mysterious enough for the uninitiated, a welcome memory-inducing trigger for the battle-hardened, spliced-up players. Because this first one was such a darn pleasing ride, I pre-ordered the second one in the nifty butterfly box edition. Super ultra nice sweet box, but the game was rather... OK, with a sprinkle of 'meh' added. It felt more like BioShock 1.5, or a mod of sorts. Female, swift, death-from-above enemies to contrast the lumbering, charging, very earthbound Big Daddies? OK. Replace the male mortal enemy with a female one, with a thick accent? Uhm... not quite that original, is it.

Now with BioShock 3, everything pretty much pissed me off already. I never asked for timed-release info on all enemy types. That was total bollocks. Now, before even got released, I'm pretty much bored and annoyed beyond saturation, and the cover reminds me not of my adventures unda da sea, since it looks just like anything out of the Uncharted series, or any other random action-y game with pew pew shooty guns and stuff. It's also the first Bioshock where I am allowed (i.e. forced) to have a look at my player character hero type of sorts, even before we got properly introduced. It's lazy, it's wrong and I'll hold back to see if all that fancy new stuff isn't, in fact, some of that frothy Molyneux foam that will actually pretty much kill the franchise dead, dead, dead.

 

[Dakota Scott]

^this
Seriously, people will complain about anything these days, who looks at the box art longer than 5 seconds anyways? I can forgive a game for having bad box art if it's fun to play. If this game was just a generic COD clone, THEN I'd be upset.

 

[mysecondlife]

Its not too bad. But if they have alternate cover at the backside, I'll probably go for that.