Seriously, why are there so many look-alikes? Can't companies come up with better and original ideas instead of just copying the competition? I mean, Nintendo introduced with the NES cool black box arts with a little image of what the game was supposed to be about (Mario Bros. for example, at least the early box arts), Sony had that cool little wave design under the transparent part of their PS CD cases (look on the left), Xbox had that ''Only on Xbox'' thingy at the top, etc. How original was that?

Now, it's all different... They're all similar! First of all, we have the typical ''spaceship/flying car facing in some random angle that always turns out to be more to the left than the right'' type. Just look at these two box arts:

Second of all, we have a new type that just appeared in the market, but this one is more bloody for no apparent reason (or maybe because humans contain blood, I dunno). Here are two fine examples of this one:

Third of all, we have the typical ''hero facing a random direction that always turns out to be right for no reason'' type.

Last, but not least, we have the typical ''[insert character name here] facing right in front of us with guns in hands just for the good looks'' type. Those two are the best examples I found:

So, with all that said and showed, I believe we could compare the effect it has on these different game's sales. I mean, for the first example, Konami knew that F-Zero: Maximum Velocity would sell more because the purple racer just looks too good in that position, so they absolutely had to copy that idea. Sadly, it failed to sell more because of that (a spaceship does not equal a cool purple racer). And what about Left 4 Dead and Dead Space (they even have similar names, but that's for another thread)? Everybody knows that Valve copied EA's design because all workers at EA are geniuses and create good and original things that always sell good anyways. I mean, they even showed their game's box art a few weeks after EA did with theirs, so they had to have another design before that! Also, Left 4 Dead being only a 360/PC game, they definitely won't sell more copies of their game to PS3-only owners just because they have a hand that's missing a finger for a box art! I thought Valve knew better, oh well... I don't even have to explain myself with Halo 3 and Resistance 2. It's just too funny when you think about it, though. And we even have Ubisoft that pretty much copied TimeShift's concept (and look at the colors, if there are any). They even copied the system of choice and the ESRB rating! How unoriginal can these companies be? They definitely lose some credibility here, and low sales in the long run are easily explained by these poorly made decisions. It doesn't work, so why bother copying the competition?

I want companies to hire me for their next box art designs.

Those are all petty close I guess the companys are running out of ideas.

It could be the same artisits

Box Art: Take My Hand Edition!

There's only so much you can do with box art, and you want to usually keep it simple which limits you even more.

Although I think that Resistance 2 box art is pretty badass and I don't see why you'd complain about it.

lol wow, i never noticed that

Resistance is a Halo-clone confirmed?

On Topic:

It's probably because there's very little you can do that expresses the atmosphere of the games on boxart, so you go with what works (and in some cases, what doesn't).

@axumblade:
Um Halo 1 cover, masterchief is facing the front.

kind of similar

Fixed.

Also:



WTF?

this is kinda funny.