Does a games box art really help its sales?

[bananaking21]

so the question is simple does the box art really help a game get more sales? 

we all remember the bioshock viasco that happened a couple of weeks back and now i stumbled on an article talking about dead space 3's box art, and it seems that publishers think that a box art does help selling a game to the mass market. to point out what publishers are doing here is a pic comparing dead space3's box art to other big games

so what do you guys think? does the box art matter? should we "core" gamers care about it if it really is helping our favorite games sell better?