The Death of Video Game Box Art
The Death of Video Game Box Art
Mega Legs & Horn Boy Take Care of Business
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Digital downlaods bro…I love old box art…but would not trade it for modern convenience…also graphics were shit back then
What is the outro music?
That megaman us box art looked like the cover of fantastic planet by failure. Great album great band
5:45 that’s very familiar theme. legend Of the Dragoon?!
elden rings art goes hard tho
Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow’s localization box art change actually hurts to look at
I LOVE reversible covers, you get the best of both worlds. The publisher gets to sell more copies with their generic, focus-tested, very static and boring 3D render, and the players who enjoy things that look good get REAL cover art once they buy it just by taking out the insert and turning it around. It’s such a nice treat to come home with a new Switch game and see infinitely cooler art from the inside of the case.
I know this video is a little bit old, but I’m currently writing my thesis on box art across culture. And I would like to know what type of sources you use to write your videos. Thanks
Box art became commercial trash. Like anything that gets popular.
This game called Ork probably has the best box art I’ve seen.
I like Alien Isolation cover art tho, I cab feel fear in it
Shit dude
the irony of this video is that the example used for modern box arts actually look damn good
Fun fact about ff15 the box art is reversible so it’s just the classic art except it’s black not white. Looks 100x better that the normal cover
To me, it’s a shift towards character-drivenness to market the game as opposed to the gameplay itself. Games are trying to be film wannabees, a competition to TV entertainment rather than being their own thing. They sell you a character, a story, a watchable means of entertainment – but by no guarentee a playable means.
It’s related to the fact that even though graphics and character design evolved massively over the decades, the gameplay hardly changed for the most part. Video games are more like video shows than actual games.
Does anyone know the name of the game at 3:23 ?
Some of my favourite box art is Mega Man X2 and Mega Man X3’s Japanese Art. Then you have the American versions…
The Japanese ones look like BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE POSTERS. They showcase extremely well-made art of the Counter Hunters, Dr. Doppler, all the Mavericks from both games and so on.
The American ones are like, "Oh look it’s X and 2-3 of the Mavericks in the games"
The Dark Souls shield art represents Artorias of the Abyss. He was left-handed, and that’s his greatshield on the right arm. When he fought the abyss and lost his left arm, he had to switch to his off hand. That’s why when you fight him he’s using his off hand and is (lore-wise) weaker
Wtf I remember Resident Evil 4 having MUCH BETTER art. Like a red and black forest with the chainsaw guy in the background all blacked out. Is this shit with Leon the American version?
America killed everything
I discovered that you can fix Doom 2016 cover by flipping the cover around and getting that badass image of the Doomslayer fighting demons
The zelda cover for the 64 is trrrible. The gran turismo is better in europe, the R.E 2 too,
bruh why yall gotta screw us with the mgs4 box art bro
the contrast of japanese elegance and subtlety with american american-ness will never not be funny
Forbidden Siren 2 has one of the scariest cover arts for a videogame, it gives me goosbumps every time I see it
Video game instruction manuals slapped back in the day. I loved opening Danganronpa v3 and actually having info on *most* of the characters. Something you almost NEVER get today.
Or in Harvest Moon ToT they gave you info on how to romance some of characters.
Love that shit
Sorry but Jak 3 box art was awesome… Fight me
Somebody hold my tin foil hat I’m about to cook up a gem. America killed box art in the early 2000s likely because it was considered "too expensive" to hire good artists to do it well. In the late 90s, our public schools began cutting arts programs because it was "too expensive" to break off a couple crumbs from the athletics budget.
Somewhere in the in between computer design became one of the most popular majors in colleges and was flooded by mediocre "artists" that wanted to make mindblowing CG "art" by photoshopping shit onto other shit and slapping a couple dozen computer generated filters on top for that sweet, sweet "art" money that no one actually wanted to pay them to make.
I’m going to need a cork board and a couple yards of red yarn to connect these dots but I think I’m onto something here…
One franchise that don’t suffer from this is Monster Hunter, they had consistent badass box arts since 2004 where you see one hunter or more duking it out or about to face the main monster of the series.
I’m happy they didn’t forget what makes their game iconic and beautiful.
This is an old video, but always remember that Keiji Inafune blamed Mega Man’s American box art for why the game sold badly on NES, the same goes with ICO. It sold badly and Sony of America inadvertently insulted Ueda by not using his painting for the American art.
Man I remember the story behind the box art for Bioshock Infinite. It’s cool that they had the original design as a b-side and you better believe I turned it around immediately and never went back, but the fact that they thought the game would sell better with a generic dude on the front with a gun is so depressing. And it’s even more depressing that they were probably right.
It’s so odd watching a nakeyjakey vid without him on his legendary yoga ball
Hail Mary bc I’m drawing a blank for some reason, what’s the background music in the intro?
the elder scrolls game boxes looking like books was pretty cool
Don’t see any problems with that. You can still make a rememberable and good ass cover with a picture of a "pissed off guy" (MW2, Batman AC)
It’s because the Western world is still largely a pagan culture who idolise beautiful or Heroic individuals (often both). We love portraiture because it immortalises the personae of individuals.
It’s not as common in Eastern storytelling where stories are quite horizontal and passive. Who the character is as an individual person is irrelevant, partially because of the overriding importance of family dynasties, nature generally being quite uncaring towards who you are in that part of the world and also because how people look doesn’t really matter as much as in Europe where people have a wider range of natural hair colours, eye colours and skin colours from one person to another; which create interesting personae just through image alone.
The cultural environment you grow up in influences how you perceive yourself in relation to others. America is the ultimate worshiper of individualism hence the hero on the box.
Same with art from antiquity. Compare both cultures, nothing has changed much. Japan has drawn a lot of influence from the states though and the west took influence from their art too (see impressionism and those cute faceless ornaments of vague family figures on the mantelpiece at your mums house)
I think any kid growing up playing WoW, getting that New Expansion Box which opens up like a literal book, and has five game cds and a game manual book…*chefs kiss* fucking loved that shit.
6:52 whats this choir song? so nice
OMG! The contradictions of people that I’ve been seeing left and right. Like how you criticize Final Fantasy 6 for being too minimalist in the US but praise the Metal Gear Solid for the exact same thing (only to later praise the Japanese minimalist Final Fantasy Box art of later games and criticize the character art of the US ones, perfect). There is so many examples of this in this video (like why does the Castlevania art work where the GOD 2, Bloodbourne, and some others, doesn’t when they do the exact same thing?) Why do people do this all the time?
2:48 is that you Gandolf?
i remember driving home from bestbuy with a copy of halo 3 odst with my brother and analyzing the shit out of the game box. good times…
Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack box art is Amazing
The hot photoshop boi is an artist too tho… just received a different set of instructions
This is a great video, I never even really stopped to think about how awesome box art can be.
I disagree with some of the covers he calls bad though. I don’t even like FFV that much but I like the box art. It’s not the same as all the others; the characters are actually doing something instead of just staring into the camera and holding a gun. And they don’t take up the whole image, you also see the nice deserty atmosphere.
I finally played horizon zero dawn and this video explains why it was a great game
Final Fantasy XV is probably the only example I disagree with here. That’s one of my favorite covers, and it makes sense to not do the minimalist background thing, since the main cast and their relationship is such a big part of the game.
Everything else though, you’re right on the money
Steelbook cases for games are usually good, look at the FC New Dawn steel book
i think its more bkz the box art was presentation at that time but now days every one watch trailers and gameplay
This hits even harder in 2022
european covers many times are/were better. Americans love flying heads or main character looking to one side. GENERIC.