How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?

I still get that the excited childhood feeling that any real gamer gets when they obtain a new joy box (game) and in my opinion the cover art is an integral part of the experience. It is very important for a number of very good reasons of witch, I think, giving the game a visual identity is the most important. Yes, most people will also picture strong characters instead of cover art when prompted for games like Mario or Sonic but the covers tend to re enforce this by standing the Hero in some action pose with their name plastered over head. The cover art that I am talking about are the ones that try to sum up the game in one glorious picture. This does not mean that all cover art should use the same formula as different subtleties and ideas can look very different but yield the same satisfying results. Examples in questions:

Hear are 3 game covers arts from the golden ages of, the NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System for you youngens. They have all taken a different tack on the style of the cover but all convey very well what the game is about. Mega Man is like a can of white paint, it does exactly what is says on the tin. By looking at the game art you know you are going to be playing a boy with a big gun for an arm that he shoots at robots in an effort to get to the old man boss. Simple formula.

Final Fantasy has a completely different spin. It does not really tell you anything about the game you are about to embark on but it looks interesting and poses questions that you want to fined the answers out to. Questions like What is that floating castle, what is that floating eyeball thing and why do I need an 84 page handbook?










Finally Castle Vania 3 Dracula’s Curse (the best one). This cover has loads of stuff going on that just makes the cover look super exciting as your eye has allot of action to look at.

So now nearly 20 years since the release of the NES the formula for game art must have changed, right? Well hear are 3 more games taken from the machine of the minuet, the xbox 360. All three games have again taken a very different tack on there game art but all have very strong covers. Sonic the hedgehog could not be clearer. By the cover you can see that you are going to be playing a big blue running hedgehog, but if you did not know that already you need to get out a bit more.

Left 4 Dead poses more questions than it answers. Questions like, where is his thumb and how come he never married. But this is a very striking cover in its own right and again makes you want to play the game to fined out more.

Finally, Grand Theft Auto. A busy cover with lots of images of different exciting things. It does not make it clear what you will be doing in the game but again, you know it will be bad ass!

So in summery, I personally think that Game’s Cover Art is very important in defining the identity of the game. It can be made up in many different ways but they should all invoke that excited feeling when viewed… or maybe that’s just me…

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.

Man Fat: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?