One of my pet peeves with the interactive industry has
always been the lack of a clue many companies seem to posses when working on their
advertising campaigns for games. You don’t have to spend long flipping through a PC
game magazine before you find a truly terrible advertisement. However, the game box is
another vital piece of the puzzle that publishers need to consider when putting together a
product. Far too often even the box design leaves a lot to be desired.
Take, for example, the box for Acclaim’s Forsaken. Sure, it has a cute girl on the
cover, but the problem with this box is that the girl has absolutely nothing to do with
the game. If she was somehow involved in the game then the imagery would make sense, but
the way it stands now, she’s simply a red herring – It’s just as obscure as
putting a picture of a penguin on the cover of a baseball game. Although the image is
certainly eye catching, what it suggests to me is that the company didn’t think the
images from the game would be able to move product. I still remember the first ads for
BattleCruiser 3000AD from a few years back that featured a girl in a nightgown holding a
game box. Ploys like these clearly don’t do much for game sales because they have
nothing to do with the product. Imagine someone’s disappointment in seeing this
beautiful girl on the cover of a box and then buying the game…and finding that she
isn’t even featured ONCE in the game. Deception will not get you very far. Sex sells
but deception doesn’t. Bottom line: Images on game boxes need to be focused (one key
piece of art is vital) but they also must somehow relate to the game experience.
I’m also always amazed at the amount of technical garbage that is on game boxes
today. I remember reading the back of the Blade Runner box from Westwood last year and
they used the words "volumetric and attenuated lighting" as bullet points to
sell the game. Do you think the average consumer knows what these terms mean? Far too
often game publishers try to sell their products like they are a new toaster oven or a
garden hose, talking about the technical features. When was the last time you read the
back of a video box at Blockbuster and the text said, "The movie was filmed on Kodak
Film and features breathtaking computer-generated visual effects created on SGI Onyx 2
Machines." You never see this because movies are sold on the idea of stories and the
imagery is supposed to speak for itself. Unfortunately, far too many game publishers want
to list off the technical features of a game – On the Forsaken box the big quote form
Computer Gaming World is "Forsaken is the best Direct3D game I’ve ever
seen." To the average consumer, the word Direct3D scares them. Do they know or care
what Direct3D is? No they don’t. They just want an immersive game experience.
Unfortunately, most game publishers don’t understand this. All the box copy should
talk about the technology as it relates to improving gameplay.
Finally, companies still seem to struggle at classifying their products – Although
I think there is a lot of genre busting going on (games that can’t be pigeonholed
into one genre), companies seem to be unable to sum up their game in a sentence or two.
Today, few games have taglines or short two sentence descriptions that really summarize
what the game brings to the market. This needs to happen. With a short tagline, a consumer
can easily understand what a product is about. The back of the box should provide more
detail, but the front should state the game title and have a short teaser blurb of a few
lines that draws the player into the box.
The easy way to draw someone in is to put a sexy girl on the cover, but it will only
lead to disappointment. Easy sells tend to be short-term cash cows, not long-term
strategic advantages.
