What happened to good box covers?

I was looking at a number of games in EB recently, and it seems every box thesedays has a really, really badly done 3D render on it. Plastic-y people and textureless gfx.

For a good example, look at the art in PCZone for DUNE Emperor, or the front cover of Klingon Academy.

I dunno, I miss the cover art you used to get on old games. You know, the ones where the guys had actually hired a decent artist (Psygnosis: Roger Dean, Rodney Matthews) to do a decent and original cover pic.

I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but it has be said that modern games look crap, even before you install them.

Sorry, this should be in the Nostalgia section.

I'll get this right yet...

[Amiga1992]

I'll tell you why. Because they think 3D is hip and cool, but it isn't, unless done very right.

Japanese games use to have really good boxart, with hand drawn graphics and stuff like that. And the japanese boxes for Gameboy Advance games are really nice.

Anyway, back then there were some really awful ones too!

[Muzkat]

I agree that box art these days isn't much, but I simply adore the artwork on the cover of Alien versus Predator 2 for PC, which was released rercently.

Entirely in black, with an alien leering at the predator. The alien is at the top left hand corner, looking down, while the predator is on the bottom right hand corner, looking up and clutching that evil looking staff or spear. A cool, circular design radiates from the centre of the cover.

Best part- the art doesn't seem to be drawn or printed. The various lines in the art are created by raised portions of the cover. Love it!

[Amiga1992]

Good game boxes nowadays are few and far between. I was looking at my amiga boxes the other day, and boy, are they pretty! Most are really very cool, while today, most are uber poop.

[Drake1009]

Now that we speak of boxes. I don't know if this is common otherplaces, but lately it seems many of the new releases are released in DVD covers with a simple insert for box art. Sure it fits more on a shelf, but I sort of miss the old box covers. They can put something nice on the smaller covers, but there's just something about a box which makes it look better.

As for the art. I think most of my boxes for PC games have got a decent drawing instead of just some stupid rendering.

Examples of a couple of boxes which are (in my opinion) fairly well done would be the Megaman X4 box, the Undying cover art (I'd love to have that picture in a larger size), Legacy of kain also have a fairly well done box, and the Wheel of time had something special, though not much of art it's good to see they could use the box for other than art, they made a piece of semi-transparent plastic as part of the front of the box and drawing on it so it'd seem like a gate where you could make out the manual behind it. Not much art, but good idea to use the box.

[Muzkat]

I too hate the DVD covers for games nowadays. There is something too conservative about them.

[Drake1009]

Conservative? I thought boxes would be considered conservative since that's what's been used for a while. I just think they plain suck.

[MethodGit]

I'm pissed off, because my stupid family threw away nearly all of my Amiga & PC game boxes a long time ago (only a small few remain now) in order to "make the house clean". Fuck cleaning a house! I LOVED my old boxes! A lot better than the diabolical "pictures" you get on the front cover of most new games nowadays.

And also, the vast majority of the companies I haven't heard of anymore! Some of them seem to be just another crappy foreign new company! What happened to the greats like Bullfrog, Ocean, (the old) Codemasters, DMA Design, Virgin, Digital Illusions, Team 17 etc?

[TikTok]

What I always liked about the old boxes (and especially the covers for cassette games) was the way they often bore virtually no resemblance to the game. Maybe you'd get a photo of some special forces guy looking particularly nasty on the cover, and in the game you'd get a collection of a few black pixels that might look like a soldier if you squint a bit after a few beers . I'm sure some of those games companies were in breach of the trade description laws after using those covers .

Bullfrog Split and became Lion Head of Black & white fame (I hate that game!) and Mucky Foot who developed Urban Chaos, CodeMasters have a new racing game out on the PS2 and they did the Colin McRae Rally games. I dont know about the others

[LaundroMat]

The box cover for Burnout (PS2 game - excellent arcade feel) has a distinct (and I'm almost sure deliberate) eighties feel to it.

It's a good box cover (tm).

[amigaade]

You think you've got it bad......

Anyone remember all those painted inlays for old 8 bit games? (C64/Speccy etc)
Done by a guy called Bob Larkin I think. Featuring all those muscley guys/scantily clad women and fantastic futuristic cities with incredibly detailed spacecrafts fighting each other??
When the game loaded you got a STICK MAN or a TRIANGULAR BLOB to control.
Sorta threw the ambience of the moment.

[Muzkat]

That was one thing I hated about Amiga covers, Amigaade. The art on the cover wasn't reflected in the game.

Still, I would still like to see more artistic work on game covers these days...and yes, I still hate DVD covers. They are just too small. Boxes were so big, and so glossy! And many had that punched up effect.

[JudasEZT]

They prefers to use graphics/renders of the game instead of pick up a real illustrator.

The images who usually they use nowadays has no lenguage, theres nothing behind, no composition or real design of the cover itself.. bah.. pure shit.

The old 8bit covers which were cool but didnt refelected the game usually were because they bought an already made illustration. At least they usually were good.

[tokalash]

I think it's the same issue with the vhs/dvd covers of today. A plain closeup of some face and some rendered effects... In most cases, real ugly.

[Marcuz]

yup and leave unemployied a good number of illustrators.