NintendoTim  |  March 18th, 2010 at 10:51 am

That Heavy Rain debacle could have been avoided.

T&A isn’t the route to go /all/ the time.

GigoByte  |  March 18th, 2010 at 10:59 am

Heavy Rain box art (UK) is beasty compared to the US version.. makes me glad to be a UK resident

NintendoTim  |  March 18th, 2010 at 11:20 am

I actually imported the UK collector’s edition, purely because SCEA decided against it for the US.

I wonder how much they’ll charge for the Taxidermist DLC…

sega651  |  March 18th, 2010 at 11:48 am

WHY?!?!

I mean, why do you care what the game box looks like? shoulden’t you be more worryed about the GAME ITSELF?!?!?

NintendoTim  |  March 18th, 2010 at 12:23 pm

Box art speaks volumes about the game. Of course, many people’s defense would be “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” however, Sony isn’t the only company that overlooks this.

Heavy Rain wasn’t the only game to come out with a revised box art when it was localized in the states. Why would SCEA change the boxart? Because they feel American gamers (the ones HR wouldn’t cater to) want T&A in their games, more than what’s already there. If the box art really didn’t matter, why are the localized versions always changed?

Look at Ico. The Japanese release sported some amazing artwork, then when it came time to bring it State-side, SCEA changed it. Why? Because of the violent, aggressive pose Ico was portrayed in.

Any Kirby game released in the past 10 years has had Kirby given an aggressive look when brought to the States from Japan. Japan loves cute-and-cuddly, whereas America wants blood, gore and violence (not to mention sex).

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NintendoTim  |  March 18th, 2010 at 12:23 pm

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The box art is supposed to be an accurate portrayal of the game, and to centralize the idea of the game itself into a coherent piece of art that can speak to the potential buyer of said game. There are a lot of people out there who peruse video games at Best Buy, GameStop, Wal-Mart, everywhere, and if they can make their purchasing decision based off of the box art without turning it over and look at it, companies will invest hundreds, if not thousands, into an artist to come up with an image to be used on the front cover that conveys the game’s overall tone.
There have been /many/ video games that, when localized to the States, use horrendous box art, purely to satisfy the so-called “Violent American Mind.” Heavy Rain and Ico are two games in recent memory that have botched artwork, because they thought the game would sell better if it had either characters portrayed in a violent behavior, or as if they just came out of a wet t-shirt contest.

PantherX  |  March 22nd, 2010 at 8:15 am

right the piece of paper and plastic make a game better. hmm so what happens if the box gets destroyed? do u buy another? but the bigger question is u want a crappy box or game?