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How Valve came up with their handy Left 4 Dead box art
According to Valve's blog, this was one of their goals in creating the box art for Left 4 Dead....under no circumstances would we use Photoshop. L4D is a visceral experience, and its box art deserved the same approach. Valve artist and L4D1 hand model Andrea Wicklund was more than happy to help.
The box art for Left 4 Dead isn't iconic just because the game is so popular, although that helps. It's iconic because it's simple, informative, and bold. In other words, it's risky. If Sony, Electronic Arts, or Activision was responsible for the cover, it would have a picture of Francis, Bill, Louis, and/or Zoey, bristling guns. In the background would be a busy cityscape with zombies. It would be a noisy jumble designed to stand out, but because it would sit on a shelf next to a bunch of other noisy jumbles, it would blend in.
I wish other game developers would take to heart Valve's approach. So many videogame boxes are driven by marketing research, which dictates a dude (or chick) on the cover ("Gamers identify with a character"). Action stuff happens in the background ("Gamers want to know the gameplay is dynamic and exciting"). There are probably guns or tanks, maybe an aircraft ("Gamers love hardware!"). The game name is some sort of arresting in-your-face font ("Branding, dontcha know?"). Lots of busy activity ("Remember, dynamic and exciting!").
It's all so unimaginative and rote.
It's a shame more game boxes don't do something simple and memorable. From there, it's not a far step to iconic. Red Faction: Guerrilla came close. The box cover features the stencil image of a fist grabbing a hammer. But THQ went and cluttered it up by dropping in a picture of the main dude ("Gamers identify with a character"), a walker ("Gamers love hardware!"), and hints of wreckage ("Gamers want to know the gameplay is dynamic and exciting").
By obonicus at 8:47 AM ON 06/17/09
Okay, but who created the box-art for The Orange Box? Was it that woman, and is that why they had to bite her thumbs off?
By Chijts at 8:55 AM ON 06/17/09
The box art for AGAIN Ico was pretty spiffing (atleast the one I found over here). It looked like some sort of painting by Giorgio De Chirico:
http://www.leninimports.com/giorgio_de_chirico_gallery_7.jpg
and Ico:
http://101videogames.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/ico-box-art.jpg
By sewart at 10:10 AM ON 06/17/09
I totally agree. I had the exact same reaction when picking up Ghostbusters yesterday. When you have such an iconic logo at your disposal, why not make that the box art? Instead we get the logo plastered over with not-that-great computer renders of the four stars. It's all very cluttered and cliche.
By Rock8man at 11:00 AM ON 06/17/09
One thing I really hate is the tendency to clutter up the cover with so many different things. Take the cover for Far Cry 2. It's a jumble of 5 images. When I put the game in the 360, the cover art displayed for the game is beautiful. It's the image in the center of the box art, but bigger. It shows a machete-wielding man in front of a sunset, and on the ground behind him, closer to the viewer, we see burning grass, and the ground is littered with shells from a fired weapon.
Heck, any one of the 5 images from the Far Cry 2 cover would have been better than having all 5 images on there, all cluttered together. The same is true for the GTA IV cover. There's so many images there, my brain just shuts off, and all I see is GTA IV and a bunch of garbled images. But if I look carefully, any one of those images would make a more interesting cover.
By goz at 11:24 AM ON 06/17/09
Can I point you tro http://boxart.tumblr.com/ for a daily source of videogame box art that bucks the trends...
By rrmorton at 11:28 AM ON 06/17/09
I totally agree that video game box art could and should be more graphically pleasing. There were some wonderful submissions in the recent retro box covers forum threads which really made me realize what we're missing.
The first time I saw the Left 4 Dead cover art was actually on a billboard outside Newark airport. I'm not sure what was more shocking, the bitten-off thumb or the existence of a Valve billboard. I think they wisely borrowed inspiration from the controversial two-severed-fingers poster for the movie Saw II.
By Steiner at 3:21 PM ON 06/17/09
I think the bigger question would be why the box art matters at all on the big name games. Most of the titles are so hyped and talked about on blogs, you'd think that just putting a bold-face title on a blank cover would sell just as much.
I mean, who even goes to a game-selling store not knowing already what they want?
By AliZeyk at 5:18 PM ON 06/17/09
@Steiner:
You'd be surprised, but the majority of games are sold at retailers like WalMart, not Gamestop or EB. Many parents and young kids base their buying decisions on what they see on the cover, having no prior knowledge of the game (although with titles such as the Halo's or Sims of the world, that does change).
What I don't understand is why when the marketing people are trying to make their boxart "standout" on the shelves, they all somehow make them invariably the same.
By RotJ at 11:03 PM ON 06/17/09
Interesting that Ico box art was mentioned, as the Japanese version has the mysterious painting, but the American version has the standard dull collage of 3D rendered characters.
Japanese box art is almost always better than its American counterpart:
http://www.gamesradar.com/f/why-japanese-box-art-is-better/a-20080729123833874037
RotJ:
Interesting that Ico box art was mentioned, as the Japanese version has the mysterious painting, but the American v...More »