Think of your personal top 5 video game box arts. How many of those are actual art, either digital or not, instead of fancy photoshop projects made by manipulating real photographs or 3D renders?

IT’S SPREADING

Overuse of “Photoshop” took over movie posters and now it’s infecting game box art. It’s truly sad when an incredible game has the most boring, stock, Hollywood-style box art just because someone decided that movies are games now. As always, Western consumers are to blame (I’m only half-kidding). If you reward generic choices with cold hard cash, well, get ready for more generic box art.

GREAT SCOTT!

But arguably the worst thing about generic box art for physical video game releases is how dated it can look 10-20 years from release. Just take a look at a large chunk of the PS1’s game library or say, Super Smash Bros. Melee. Ugly 3D renders will haunt those games’ boxes until the end of time; and they might be the greatest games of all time.

What were they thinking?

THE BORING FUTURE

You think by 2010, things would have improved for the better, right? Wrong. While things may not go as ugly as the US box art for Final Fantasy VII.

Take a look at exhibit 1:

Now take a look at exhibit 2:

Which one would you go with?

Me? I would go with the one that looks good on my shelf. The one that invokes some kind of emotion when I see it in stores and makes me want to play it. ‘Generic guy with gun’ is worse, but most times ends up selling better than ‘stunning painting box art’. Humanity is doomed. And gaming with it.

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