{"id":48301,"date":"2012-12-11T13:11:34","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T11:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=48301"},"modified":"2012-12-11T13:16:28","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T11:16:28","slug":"bioshock-infinites-controversial-box-art-is-for-uninformed-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/48301-bioshock-infinites-controversial-box-art-is-for-uninformed-buyers","title":{"rendered":"BioShock Infinite’s controversial box art is for “uninformed” buyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turn out that those people who were very, very concerned that BioShock Infinite’s “terrible”, “generic”, “bland” box art<\/a> would attract the “wrong” sort of people were (almost) right – except that was, in fact, the whole idea. According to Irrational Games boss Ken Levine, it was specifically designed to appeal to the “uninformed” gamer who might not otherwise have picked it up.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Wired, Levin explained the his own thinking on the matter, admitting that – gasp!<\/em> – it’s about maximising game sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at the cover art for BioShock 1, which I was heavily involved with and love, I adored. And I tried to step back and say, if I\u2019m just some guy, some frat guy, I love games but don\u2019t pay attention to them\u2026 if I saw the cover of that box, what would I think? And I would think, this is a game about a robot and a little girl. That\u2019s what I would think. I was trying to be honest with myself. Trust me, I was heavily involved with the creation of those characters and I love them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould I buy that game if I had 60 bucks and I bought three games a year\u2026 would I even pick up the box? I went back to the box for System Shock 1, which was obviously incredibly important \u2014 that game was incredibly influential on me, System Shock 2 was the first game I ever made. I remember I picked it up\u2026 looked at it and I said, I have no idea what this game is. And I didn\u2019t have a lot of money back then. So, back on the shelf. And I was a gamer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted the uninformed, the person who doesn\u2019t read IGN\u2026 to pick up the box and say, okay, this looks kind of cool, let me turn it over. Oh, a flying city. Look at this girl, Elizabeth on the back. Look at that creature. And start to read about it, start to think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levine added that “By the time you get to the store, or see an ad, the BioShock fan knows about the game. The money we\u2019re spending on PR, the conversations with games journalists \u2014 that\u2019s for the fans. For the people who aren\u2019t informed, that\u2019s who the box art is for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which… does make a crazy kind of sense when you think about it, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n

Source: Wired<\/a><\/h5>\n

Related articles:<\/h3>\n

New Bioshock Infinite gameplay trailer premieres at VGAs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BioShock Infinite delayed (again)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BioShock Infinite cosplayer lands official promo job<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BioShock Infinite \u201cterrible\u201d box art causes internet drama<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BioShock Infinite trailer has ice-cream, miniguns, aerial grappling<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is why we can’t have nice things<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":33259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,283,8084,1769,281],"class_list":["post-48301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-active","tag-bioshock-infinite","tag-box-art","tag-controversy","tag-ken-levine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48374,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48301\/revisions\/48374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}