The Misleading World of Atari 2600 Box Art 267
Buffalo55 writes "These days, you don't have to worry about misleading box art, thanks to sophisticated video game graphics. In the 70s and 80s, though, companies tried to grab a consumer's attention with fancy artwork that bore no resemblance to the actual game. Atari, in particular, was one of the biggest offenders, particularly with its 2600 console."
Not much better on the C64 (Score:5, Informative)
I never owned an Atari 2600, but I remember the same phenomenon on the C64. Box art was usually colourful and cartoony. Very few games (at least until you got to the tail end of the C64's popular life span, when you had games like the Creatures series) could come even close to living up to this. It was a good lesson at an early age that you should never take promotional material at face value.
I also remember the loading screens you'd get on the C64 while loading the game from tape (a process which would take several minutes and often fail before the end). These were generally just as "dishonest", though they were at least limited by the display resolution. In fact, worse than that, I remember one particular game where the box description actually told outright lies. It was a top-down racer (think Super Sprint) where the box text advertised weapons, oil-slicks etc, none of which were actually present in the game. I later found out that this was a semi-infamous title (in the UK at least); a sort of 1980s equivalent to Big Rigs Over the Road Racing.
Mind you, misleading box-art continued for quite a lot longer. X-Wing was a fantastic game, but I do remember being a little disappointed by the contrast between the movie-quality box art and the slightly sparse polygon graphics in game. That said, if I remember correctly, some editions of the first two Wing Commander games actually used screenshots for their front-cover art (or can somebody correct me on this - the screenshots may have been "touched up"?).
Even today, it still goes on to some extent. Ok, the differences are probably less pronounced. Box-art still tends to save screenshots for the back cover, but this is usually clearly for stylistic reasons (in fact, the trend seems to be towards box art that is simpler and sparser than a screenshot would have been). But we still get plenty of cases of "touched up" trailers, pre-rendered cutscenes shown at conferences with the implication that they're game-play footage and so on.
Ah yeah... (Score:2, Informative)
Remember that game The Black Hole? Based on the Disney movie? They had the goatse guy on the cover. I remember starting the game up and thinking "Hey, where are the hands?"
Maybe I imagined that.
Re:The misleading lives on (Score:4, Informative)
Penny Arcade coined a term for this: bullshot [penny-arcade.com].
Still as relevant today as it was in 2005.
Remember (Score:5, Informative)
That artists that created the box art were often working several months in advance of the game being finalized. That pretty much means that they had the conceptual drawings by someone that were given to the developer and computer artists rather than an actual game.
So they had no idea what the game might look like. The programming wasn't done yet.
As someone that worked on a couple of 2600 games that were released under the Parker Brothers label, I can assure you that the boxes were done long before the code was completed. And the box production people were simply not interested in looking at what had been completed. We were in different parts of the country.
Incredible as it might seem, this is how software publishing works. The manual get done before the code is done. The artwork is conceptual because it has a significantly longer lead time. Marketing materials are approved and printed weeks before the gold master CD is burned. Everyone has a schedule and deadlines and stuff has to be done pretty much the way it was planned or it looks like something that was put together by a couple of high school kids after school.
Sure, it would be nice if everything could wait for the highly flexible and iterative development process to complete before committing to graphics for advertising. Except you would miss the big presentation at the trade show and nothing would get sold to the distributors, meaning nothing gets sold to the retailers. So everyone gets to go home and the furniture gets auctioned off along with the computers, phones and pretty posters on the walls. Yup, been there and done that as well for some people that didn't understand how the process works.
Re:Link goes to part 2 instead of part 1 (Score:4, Informative)
Even better would be to use the Coral Cache, as the server is struggling.
Part one
http://www.rundlc.com.nyud.net/news/the-misleading-world-of-atari-2600-box-art-xbox-live/ [nyud.net]
Part two
http://www.rundlc.com.nyud.net/news/the-misleading-world-of-atari-box-art-part-two-xbox-live/ [nyud.net]
Ikari Warriors for the PC... (Score:4, Informative)
I remember buying Ikari Warriors for the PC, way back in the day. The box had killer screenshots... the game looked exactly like the arcade game!
I loaded it up, and was met with horrific 4-color (white/black/cyan/magenta) graphics.
http://www.giantbomb.com/ikari-warriors/61-1619/all-images/52-164216/1029683900_00/51-803378/ [giantbomb.com]
When I looked more closely at the box, it had small print that said something like "Arcade-version images shown. PC images may be different", or something to that effect.
I was pissed. :(
Stupid article. (Score:3, Informative)
How many of you actually grew UP during that era? I'm willing to bet very few. Why? Because if you did, you'd know that THE BACK OF THE BOX HAD THE ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS. Want to know what the game looked like for reals? Flip the damn box over and use your damn eyes. Simple isn't it? See in the old days we used our hands to do things like that.
OHH WAH you mean the cover of "Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar" doesn't have a high resolution guy in a robe conjuring up a tidal wave? Sheesh. The authors of this nonsense need to get a life.
See back then, the actual box art was often something to be admired. The above mentioned "Quest of the Avatar" was painted by Denis Loubet, who made some of the best cover art for any game, bar none. There were many games that had fantastic cover art. Do you think any of us were fooled into thinking that this is what the game actually looked like? I used to KEEP the boxes around and mount them on the wall of my computer room (haw haw he said computer room he so old!).
The whole article is just a sarcastic "haw haw look how primitive old consoles were, xbox is so cools!" my-dick-is-bigger fest.
Re:Not As Bad as Kool-Aid (Score:3, Informative)
That's worse than goatse, tubgirl, and lemonparty combined. Dane Cook standup? You are one sick bastard.
Remember the Artists (Score:3, Informative)
I'm glad you were good enough to mention the artists, since it seems they never get the recognition they deserve. Some of the artwork they produced for Atari is exceptional. Unfortunately, much of this work has disappeared, either thrown away or stolen by people at Atari. Among the creators of the "Atari look":
Cliff Spohn is a talented and sought after portraitist of real people, sports figures in particular.
http://www.artworkoriginals.com/JAAAAAOU.htm [artworkoriginals.com]
Steve Hendricks also usually focused on portraiture and has created some of the most evocative and distinctive work to come out of Atari.
http://www.sundancecreative.com/ [sundancecreative.com]
Rick Guidice often worked with NASA doing space illustration.
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/view/search?q=Guidice&search=Search [nasaimages.org]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rick_Guidice [wikimedia.org]
http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/advart.html [nasa.gov]
James Kelly is not just an artist, he was one of Atari's art directors for many years.
http://www.orangecountyfineart.com/kelly.htm [orangecountyfineart.com]
http://www.slideshare.net/aditaciobanu/james-kelly-painting-nx-power-lite-presentation [slideshare.net]
Bob Flemate is someone I unfortunately haven't found much information on. He worked on Atari arcade cabinets and created the marvelous Atari 400/800 Space Invaders cover art.
http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/gamephemera_space_invaders_atari_400_800 [thenewgamer.com]
George Opperman was one of Atari's first artists and art director, and is notable for designing the original, iconic, and difficult to reproduce Atari "fuji" logo. The logo is meant to resemble the letter "A" and represents two players facing each other with the Pong "net" between them.
http://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=person&name=George+Opperman [arcade-history.com]
http://www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar/cabinets.html [cooganphoto.com]
Hiro Kimura has had the honor of creating three US postage stamps.
https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10052&productId=10001795&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=&parent_category_rn=10000003&categoryId=10000028&top_category=10000003 [usps.com]
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/images/flagcity.jpg [virtualstampclub.com]
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/images/99chalk.jpg [virtualstampclub.com]
Warren Chang was a staff artist at Atari for two years, starting in 1981. His beautiful work can be described as classical realism and has garnered several awards.
http://warrenchang.com/ [warrenchang.com]
Re:People's expectations were realistic (Score:2, Informative)