Box art-ever sold you?

da gamer

i was reading an article on ign recently about box art design and was interested to see have any of you guys ever bought a game on the basis of the box art or game shots on the back cover? i would never buy a game now based on the cover but in the past before the days of internet and review sites the packaging of a game was a decider. is box art an important selling tool for game companies?

chopperbyrne

Cyborg just looked so badass and I loved fighting games AND Brian May did the music. It should have been amazing, but instead it was a piece of absolute crap.

Thankfully I also bought Super Punch Out that day.

CiDeRmAn

Nope, never, never lost money by being dumb enough to base a purchase on box art!
I was, however, dumb enough to buy based on over-enthusiastic previews instead of waiting for the demo/review, and I have gotten stung time and time again with that one.

It's one of the benefits of retro gaming, you have only the cream and none of the cheese to choose from in the back catalogues of the various consoles...

Unless you like cheese!

Andrew76

Can't say box art ever made me buy a game. Reviews in old games mags were more a factor when I was younger since that was the only way you had of knowing if a game was likely to be decent or not. Having said that, pirating was rife back then (like it is now) so box art wasn't a very important thing - it was more about having the game to play rather than the packaging it came in imo.

I couldn't imagine box art is much of a selling factor these days - it's crap tbh. A dvd case with a cover.

Retr0gamer

Nope, always read reviews before hand. Have been turned away from amazing games by terrible box art though.

da gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nope, always read reviews before hand. Have been turned away from amazing games by terrible box art though.

you have been turned away by amazing games because of the box art?!? Thats interesting. What games retro?

amacachi

I've bought original (non-platinum) sealed games for around a tenner when it's dearer second hand and one (ONE!) special edition game because it's a tenner. If ya can get nice stuff for that price then why not?

Andrew76

amacachi wrote: »

I've bought original (non-platinum) sealed games for around a tenner when it's dearer second hand and one (ONE!) special edition game because it's a tenner. If ya can get nice stuff for that price then why not?

You're buying them for the price not because of the box art. Different point to the op's one. But yes it's a no brainer to pick up good games when they're that cheap.

Phibsboro

In my very brief gaming career as a teen, I loved Imagine's ads and packaging. They had one ad that had the future games floating up out of clouds but unfortunately they went bust (mainly for unpaid ads) before they wrote most of them....

amacachi

Andrew76 wrote: »

You're buying them for the price not because of the box art. Different point to the op's one. But yes it's a no brainer to pick up good games when they're that cheap.

Yeah but it's still boxart minus the dirty PLATINUM bit. :pac:

Retr0gamer

da gamer wrote: »

you have been turned away by amazing games because of the box art?!? Thats interesting. What games retro?

Just some games that when I was younger I didn't know were amazing but had some really dodgy bo art. G-Darius, Shining Force, Phantasy Star 2, Breath of Fire 3. It's was usually games that I didn't know about when I was younger. Doesn't happen anymore thank god.

Also even worse I've been put off some amazing games by ****ty reviewers. I didn't buy Grandia and Castlevania Symphony of the Night for years because of dreadful Official PS magazine reviewing then went crazy trying to find them because they were so rare by the time I learnt that the reviewers were tits. Also the same with the recently released Nier which I got due to great word of mouth reviews despite a panning by the press. Turned out to be one of the most interesting games of the generation.

Myrddin

Anyone who gamed through the 80's & early 90's who denies box art sold them is a bull****ter, those C64 box art illustrations broke many hearts...including mine a few times

Steve X2

EnterNow wrote: »

Anyone who gamed through the 80's & early 90's who denies box art sold them is a bull****ter, those C64 box art illustrations broke many hearts...including mine a few times

Yeah, same here

.

pdbhp

I have bought planty of games based solely on box-art or even if I thought the name was cool, some of my favourite games have come like that including Custom Robo Arena which I purchased totally because of the name

johnny_ultimate

This:



Only knew what the game actually was when I checked the manual :P

K.O.Kiki

I REGRET NOTHING!!

Dr Bob

ah...you console kids dont what it was like .
In the mid eighties , you'd be in Peats in PArnell St with a c64/A8/speccy game boxin your hot little hand .The back of the box shows absolutely spectacular graphics.You pay your 3 quid for it (loadsamoney for a 10 year old in the eighties) race home and load it up , only to see a load of blocky looking sprites shambling about the screen instead.Dumbfounded you look back at the box and see the dreaded words under the pics "screenshots taken from arcade version" (or its cousin: "screenshots taken from various versions" ..AKA two Amiga 1200 screenshots).
Like I said you dont know man , YOU WERENT THERE!!

Pyongyang

luas_dublin wrote: »

Like I said you dont know man , YOU WERENT THERE!!

I remember those days very well, especially when Ocean were advertising Parasol Stars in Commodore Format and we all know what happened with there...

Myrddin

luas_dublin wrote: »

ah...you console kids dont what it was like .
In the mid eighties , you'd be in Peats in PArnell St with a c64/A8/speccy game boxin your hot little hand .The back of the box shows absolutely spectacular graphics.You pay your 3 quid for it (loadsamoney for a 10 year old in the eighties) race home and load it up , only to see a load of blocky looking sprites shambling about the screen instead.Dumbfounded you look back at the box and see the dreaded words under the pics "screenshots taken from arcade version" (or its cousin: "screenshots taken from various versions" ..AKA two Amiga 1200 screenshots).
Like I said you dont know man , YOU WERENT THERE!!

Basically this. Not only was the box art duplicitous, but the god damn screen shots a lot of the time were from Amiga versions!

CiDeRmAn

The 80's were great, stunning box art from Wakelin on Imagine, US Gold and Ocean games, rarely bore any resemblance to the actual game but then that was what Crash magazine was for, if you bought a games before reading a review you were asking for trouble.
Loading from tapes meant waiting around and there were few places that would load a game to try before you buy.

They often had screen shots on the backs of increasingly ornate boxes with glorious visuals and in tiny lettering
screen shots may be from other versions, and if you don't read this bit and buy it anyway tough poopy-doos on you!! well, maybe not the last part but definitely the former!

Steve X2

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

The 80's were great, stunning box art from Wakelin on Imagine, US Gold and Ocean games, rarely bore any resemblance to the actual game but then that was what Crash magazine was for, if you bought a games before reading a review you were asking for trouble.
Loading from tapes meant waiting around and there were few places that would load a game to try before you buy.

They often had screen shots on the backs of increasingly ornate boxes with glorious visuals and in tiny lettering
screen shots may be from other versions, and if you don't read this bit and buy it anyway tough poopy-doos on you!! well, maybe not the last part but definitely the former!

Speaking of Bob Wakelin.

http://stores.ebay.ie/The-Attic-Bug/Bob-Wakelin-Artwork-/_i.html?_fsub=1882233013&_sid=44611463&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

.

TerrorFirmer

Not really, but this one will always stand out in my mind:

CiDeRmAn

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Not really, but this one will always stand out in my mind:

Yet another example of decent cover art masking a completely sh1te game!

Jimmy Bottlehead

I can remember once, anyways!

Was browsing through a PC games shop, and seen a game called Dark Earth. This was back in the days of giant PC game boxes
Looked cool from the front, big bad-ass looking chap, so I flipped it over...

CHICK WITH BOOBS

Rest of it sounded un-****e enough to warrant a purchase, so bought it there and then. Sadly, the boobage was both brief and disappointing, but on the plus side, was an excellent game

Here it is, boobs are just about visible!

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Dark-Earth-RPG-PC-game-BIG-BOX-RARE-/120802324202?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_205&hash=item1c20612eea#ht_1201wt_1270

da gamer

In my younger days i purchased games that had decent screenshots on the back cover and if the game sounded interesting. One that was a pleasent surprise was redneck rampage. Absolutely loved that game.

i also bought rad gravity, smash tv, jersey devil based purely on the look of either the box art or screenshots. Luckily i ended up enjoying every one of these games. The same cannot be said for fade to black.....i seen the word 'alcatraz' on the back of the box and i was sold. I thought wow this game has to be great and no way could it be buggy.... how wrong i was

LoGiE

Once I saw it in Peats, it had to be mine...luckily for me it was fantastic!

CiDeRmAn

Good thing he has a suit of armour on or those two crystals would have torn the flute off of him!!

TerrorFirmer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Yet another example of decent cover art masking a completely sh1te game!

Best...side scrolling beat em up....ever.

unky chop chop

Oh yeah Turrican artwork sold it for me.
Actually any c64 game that was a full pricer(only 12 pound) in those cardboard packages.
Feck it,I got them for a special occasion in those days..and my oulpair were paying.:)

Also I remember Creatures,Rainbow islands and Crackdown had box art that jumped off the shelve and into my hand in them days

When you are ten or eleven you can't seriously say you weighed up the pros and cons of a game..even though Zzap was my Bible.Man the cover art on those babies.

Pyongyang

unky chop chop wrote: »

Zzap was my Bible

Commodore Format and Roger Frames were my bible back in those days. I read Zzap occasionally and Commodore Power/Force.

Commodore Format's Rowlands diaries were excellent too. Always looked forward to the next issue of that magazine. Good times.

unky chop chop

I nearly had every issue of Zzap in bundles in my room.
Man the covers came of them easily.Then I threw them all away in a fit of madness thinking I would never want them again.
Didn't the same lad do the sister speccy mag cover art as well.Legend.

Pyongyang wrote: »

I read Zzap occasionally and Commodore Power/Force.

Can you get em digitally somewhere?

Just found this
http://www.archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine

Dr Bob

unky chop chop wrote: »

I nearly had every issue of Zzap in bundles in my room.
Man the covers came of them easily.Then I threw them all away in a fit of madness thinking I would never want them again.
Didn't the same lad do the sister speccy mag cover art as well.Legend.


Can you get em digitally somewhere?

Just found this
http://www.archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine

you could always try http://www.zzap64.co.uk/

mondeo

I bought this game based on the box art back in 1989 or thereabouts. I just picked it up off the shelf in Virgin Mega stores and bought it. I was an EDD fan so had to have it realy.

[IMG][/img]

DinoRex

LoGiE wrote: »

Once I saw it in Peats, it had to be mine...luckily for me it was fantastic!

I also purchased Turrican 2 in Peats.

Dale Parish

Let's not fool ourselvs into thinking that Japanese multi-coloured art is the only way!

I mean... come on...

CiDeRmAn

Yeah, but it's Elite, if it was drawn in crayon by a drooling idiot I'd still have bought it,
The words "David Braben" and "Elite" are the key points here.

Retr0gamer

WTF? Konami published Elite 2???

Dr Bob

Retr0gamer wrote: »

WTF? Konami published Elite 2???

yup I remember that from when I had the pc version yeaaaars ago

CiDeRmAn

I wonder what would happen if you entered the Gradius cheat in?
I bet loads did!

CiDeRmAn

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Best...side scrolling beat em up....ever.

No...it...wasn't...the...whole...genre...stinks....

But...if...pressed...I...really...really...really...liked...I...mean...really...liked...Batman...Returns...on...the...Snes...like...I...really...liked...it...maybe...even...loved...it...which...is...odd...because...as...a...rule...the...side...scrolling...beat'em...up...is...useless...in...my...humble...opinion!!!

Retr0gamer

Alien vs. Predator was better than Batman Returns. The stuff you could do when you got good especially with Linn was great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugUTz3jkfgM

Ah, the days when I could almost 1 credit it are long gone

CiDeRmAn

Hmm, the one they did with the feck-off big robots was fun too, there, I said it.

I think the thing with Batman Returns was the context, the film was amazing and the game a really impressive tie in.
Also, as games in that genre go *shudder*, it had/has a real arcade feel, as in Final Fight, a nice sense of momentum to Bats himself as well, a combination of animation, programming and audio, much like the excellent Arkham games at the moment.

o1s1n

So Streets of Rage II doesn't have an arcade feel?

GTFO! And take your silly costumed superhero games with you

CiDeRmAn

That would be my pimply ginger haired arse you can kiss now!
But if you do love that game it's ok, no one needs to have taste to post here, otherwise Pdbhp would've been kicked out ages ago!

pdbhp

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

That would be my pimply ginger haired arse you can kiss now!
But if you do love that game it's ok, no one needs to have taste to post here, otherwise Pdbhp would've been kicked out ages ago!

Ouch.

















That is all!!:pac: