The Death of Video Game Box Art 

Remember when you got the game and stared the boxart while driving home to play it

Upon seeing the Japanese coverart for Dark Souls... I am genuinely pissed.

Can't believe he stole dunkeys idea 4 years before dunkey even made the video.

I'm glad DOOM Eternal actually has art.

UPDATE: The U.S Dark Souls cover is Artorias, which is why the dude is left handed. I sincerely apologize for my actions and revoke my status as a Soul Boy. Dog forgive me. Japanese one is still better though so actually still dog blessed

Nakey Jakey: The only RU-vidr that talks about every aspect of a game, except for the game.

I'm glad rockstar kept the tile style version of their boxart

RDR2 cover art is just a guy with a gun, but it also looked so good because of the colouring and it looks hand-drawn and not just a photo of the game character

That japanese ico cover is a thing of beauty

*Kirby's angry eyebrows*

Fun Fact: Bioshock Infinite actually has amazing box art. You just have to flip cover paper.

Using Evanescence to describe American box art is absolutely perfect.

Red dead is a good combo of guy with a gun and actual art

I miss the old days of good video game manuals. Call of Duty 1 had around 20-30 pages and every weapon in the game was explained. The weapon stats + some history behind the weapon. Also the addon "Babarian Invasion" for Rome Total War I had around 100(!) pages. Everything was explained: how to play, fractions, historical context and so on. Today we got 1 page which says that we should buy the season pass gg wp gaming industry

Personally I love the Dark Souls 3 cover art. The way the character looks down and lets the dirt fall through his fingers is tragic and epic at the same time. It fits the game's theme's perfectly.

I didn’t even know there was an American cover for heavy rain it looks so taccy

Don't even get me started on instruction manuals

I feel your pain man. box arts are declining in quality, but dude...DID YOU SEE the fuckin Doom 2016 reverse cover! That cover restores my faith in artist, that it's possible to bring back amazing designs.

As a graphic designer I got hit in the feels.. Thank you for the video!

I know you used Alien: Isolation as an example of a “bad” box art, but I actually really like it. It gives you a sense of dread as you can see the alien in the reflection of her helmet, which cues you into the fact that you will have to face the alien.

Even Hello Games put more effort into the No Man's Sky box art than most companies. However, some games did master the "Character showcase" style of box art. The Halo series did it well, especially with ODST.

Box art is dead because now they prefer to promote with a good trailer and don't care too much box art anymore. Before, Box art was so god damn important to attract people to buy the game, now video game companies know that with a bad ass trailer, they get better results. Same with superhero movies except the new JL poster.

Jakey really just sat here and made a video about box art without mentioning Kingdom Hearts which has had simultaneous beautiful masterpieces of box art in every region for the last eighteen years.

NakeyJakey, Scott the Woz, and Dunkey have all done videos on video game box art. While they've all said many of the same things, they've also all had some unique insights, and have communicated their thoughts with wildly different, and wildly entertaining, videos. And each one of them has shit all over Mega Man 1, which is hilarious.

My U.S. copy of Heavy Rain is the origami one. I've never even seen the "character" cover.

Thanks for mentioning the cover of GTA san Andreas, I remember my father bringing back a copy of it and before I opened it, I spent like a full 10 minutes just staring at the cover art and having all kinds of crazy ideas about the game.

For those wondering about the song at the end (9:10) The song is "Like the wind" from Gran Turismo

8:23 while I am sad that they dropped the white background, that box art actually represents the game (or at least the start of it) pretty well.

I think America is in its emo phase, hopefully we’ll be out of it by 2034

As an illustrator, comic book artist and occasional art coach/teacher, thank you so much for this video. The cover for the PS4 Spiderman game, for example, actually got me pissed off at first sight; like, literally - to the point of fuming about it for hours to my wife first and then, for the next couple of days, to anyone who would listen. Not only because I myself - and almost every one of the contacts in my personal agenda of friends and co-workers - could do WAY better than what we got, but because what we got was an embarrassing mess that barely managed to not crap all over any major rule for art design almost by accident, sticking so much to the bare bone basics of the trade that I was left wondering at some point if there had been any humans involved in its making and editing or it was entirely done by a string of algorithms or something. You could almost heard some exec's voice going "Hey, why bother, it's effin' Spider-Man, it's going to sell like hotcakes anyway so who cares?" while looking at that so-called box art. So, so infuriating. There's so many other example, of course; as you implied, the shelves are full of them currently. I just emphasized the Spider-Man example because of how close it struck to home, if you know what I mean.

The thing that annoys me even more is what has happened to the back of game cases and console boxes. Game Boxes used to get several nice screenshots with some description of the game or the story covering most of the rear. Now, huge chunks of that backside real estate are taken up by various disclaimers and region info. It's so ugly. The back of console boxes used to be filled with tons of screenshots of a bunch of different games. I used to love looking at those and seeing what other cool stuff I could get. Now, system boxes will just show features, a picture of the console, a giant logo, or the stupid character with a gun box art. It's so freakin' boring.

I am SO glad I watched this. As a PAL gamer, I was always quite repulsed by American box art and confused as to how the hell they thought they were better than the original Japanese versions. PAL tends to stick to the Japanese ones thank god.

The problem is not only with the outside of the box, but with the inside that is really empty these days.

My theory to the decline of good looking box art is that studios think no one cares about box art anymore because of the rise of DIGITAL downloads

This is why I love Steelbooks! For the most part, they still have amazing art. One of the examples you gave - Dark Souls 3 - has an awesome steelbook edition. Same with Uncharted 4 and so many others.

Gran Turismo‘s cover for the US looks like someone just put their trashbag somewhere and the art director went all „THIS.“

Nah dude the reason why it is dead is because they don't NEED box art to sell a game anymore. Games have so much hype associated with them between trailers, demos, and so forth. Whereas back in the 90s you really didn't have much media covering a game so they needed boxart to be what made you pick it up, especially during the over population of games on NES and SNES. Also, digital distribution kills it as well.

Box art is a wash, no generation wins. I miss the shit out of manuals though.

I went to art school wanting to be an illustrator for video game box art and movie posters. Sadly I think there’s no longer a market for such things within the entertainment industry. It kinda makes me wonder if eventually the visual arts will die out commercially. Although I live in Indiana, so maybe it’s different somewhere else, but around here it’s just factories and retail. There is no creative sector.

This is why I love reversible insert covers. Where you can take the cover art slip and flip it around and suddenly BAM- the case looks so much cooler. No more gaudy logos, and information boxes, warning labels, rating box, etc. - just cool art on the front and back. Bloodborne is actually one that I think looks good like this. After flpping the instert around, tne the front now has the Hunter looking down a street of Yarnahm as the moon hangs high in the sky, and on the back it just says "Bloodborne" in white text in that unique font against a solid black background. It gives such a better sense of how this game presents itself.

Doom and Dark Souls finally got the box art they deserved with their recent re-releases and I love them so much

"GeneSNES" Brilliant.

"Box art has lost its style" Doom eternal: "allow me to introduce myself."

this video is still so good!! would love an updated version of this video talking about the good/bad art of the tiles on online stores/streaming services. Every time I pull up Netflix I see so many that are just awful.

lmao that mega man box art still gives me the creeps xD

I personally don't have a problem with current covers but I wouldn't mind seeing some more creative stuff.

I just saw this but wanted to say I like this a lot. I think it's a valid point too- there are so many artists on Twitter that you could throw like $120 and get an amazing, unique, or otherwise clean-looking piece that it really is shameful some of these studios push out the same starwars derivative styled art release after release.

"dude with a gun" sometimes works especially black ops's iconic pose with the guy sitting down with two guns. (only for BO 1, 2 & 3)

dude, boring box art makes me SO MAD as an artist. like, my art teacher is always like, "hey, straight on and profiles or closeups of eyeballs are boring. take it from a weird perspective or put a new twist on it!" and thats really true. when you work on a piece (especially when you want to sell it) you put thought and time into what you want the audience to think and why. the whole "straight on view of a guy with a gun or maybe boobs" is like my edgy sketches from eighth grade all taken from the same angle

I don’t know how I feel about Red Dead Redemption 2’s Box Art. It’s almost as if it’s generic and unique at the same time

The Brash Paintings of Snake in MGS games are some of my favorite art covers

We watched this in game art class and it was hilarious but also real educational. thx for this video :D

"America Killed it" you can say that about so many things. So many of the bad decisions that Capcom and Square Enix have made were due to their attempts to be more like the west. You know what I miss more then good box art? Instruction Manuals.

I think the Borderlands games had some pretty dope box art

As someone in the U.S. who's played way too much heavy rain, I've actually never seen the U.S. cover. Idk if it's because the online stores pick which cover to use but I've actually known a lot of European/Japanese box art as just being the icon I click on whenever I try to boot up the game

Breath of the wild, sonic maina, super smash Bros ultamate, and Mario odessey all have great box art

The GENESNES. 😂

*quickly checks box cover art of game collection*

“NES, S-NES and Genes-nes” that one kinda got me.

Because I don’t live in America i never realised that it was this bad, I’ve never seen half the American box arts

Bioshock Infinite had an alternate box art. You just need to flip the cover.

I remember when I was in second grade and my dad told me he was gonna get me a ps2 for christmas and I nearly shit my pants and that's when he said "shut down the sawmill, that log can't come out yet" and then he handed me a gamestop catalogue and told me to circle the games I wanted for the ps2 (as you can already tell, it was the best christmas ever). The only game console I ever owned prior to this was an N64, so I didn't know jack diddly about these fanciful playstation games and I was just a second grader. Back then we couldn't just go on youtube and look up gameplay trailers on the internet whenever we pleased because youtube hadn't been invented yet and the internet was still mostly a lawless wasteland of pop up ads and webpages so ugly they'd melt your eyeballs if you looked at them for too long, so the only information I had to base my decisions off of were box art. Boy, I can still remember the box arts for Kingdom Hearts, Sly Cooper, and Marvel Vs Capcom 2 catching my eye. To this day, Sly Cooper's box art gives me a feeling that nothing else in the world can and I can't even describe what it is, it's not like it has a crazy box art or anything, but it's unique and I love it. Anyway, I said all this to say that box art was a huge factor in what games I bought as a kid, and I'd like to see cool box art make a comeback.

Most box art now a days look great because of the lighting and detail, they are still creative

This was the most dunkey video without even trying to be one(I'm a new subscriber binging your videos, apologies in advance)

The best example of beautiful box art in the current gen of games has to be Resident Evil 7

holy shit, after watching the intro to this video i looked at all my games to the ps4 and 80% af the games follow the "main character posing" idea, fuck me.

Interesting to come back to this in 2020. Games like Hades, Disco Elysium, and Hypnospace Outlaw all have striking and beautiful box-art. Disco technically falls into the "main character with a gun" trope, but gets a pass because it's a gorgeous illustration and a clever subversion of expectations with how little action there really is.

Oh man those MGS art covers and FFs ones are A MA ZING.

At least the Smash Ultimate box art looks CRAZY good.

Bioshocks box art: Whats that big, lumbering scuba thing with all the eyes? What was the deal with the little girl holding a big ass siringe? Wait, are they fucking under water? Why does everything look like we're in the 40s - 50s? Whats going on, I gots tah know! Bioshock Infinite: Burly dude with gun.

Love your work Jake!

I feel like the best way to do the box art with just a character is something like Hotline Miami 2. The drained and shocked look on the Beard’s face serves as a tone setter for the game and plus, it’s just drawn beautifully.

I feel that marvel’s Spider-Man had the laziest box art

The Evil Within 2 has some great box art

5:45 that's very familiar theme. legend Of the Dragoon?!

You always show the games I love. ❤

The Elder Scrolls always did a good job, making its box art look like an ancient book of some sort

*Looks at The Last of Us Box Art* That looks amazing *Looks at The Last of Us Part II Box Art* Oh for f*cks sake

Love watching your videos Thanks for making videos 😁👍🏼

Consoles with clear plastic game boxes like the Switch sometimes feature some fun artwork printed on the reverse side of the paper insert. I always like to flip the paper around and display the art on the outside of the box.

I never had any idea America had such shit box art, I'm so sorry

I really like Alien: Isolation's cover art. It would be different if the Xenomorph weren't being reflected in the visor, but the fact that it is is awesome.

5:09 and in Europe, I always loved these minimalist designs. Glad I got them in the UK

Crazy to think how this video introduced me to the beautiful art of Ico. Now years later that’s going to be the name of my first born son (haven’t played the game just thought it looked amazing). Thank you naked Jacob

Back again after seeing the incredibly shitty Cyberpunk artwork

I just watched a nerd talking about video game boxes for way too long. Wasn't disappointed.

fucking love the commentary, especially mega legs! had me dying!

I’m rewatching all of these videos and thought game icons

I remember when I was young, the only reason why I bought games was because the cover looked cool and I would look everytime at it :D

Hollywood all over again. Compare movie posters and cover art to the ones back in the day. I used to frequent Blockbuster just to look at all the amazing covers and then randomly rent a DBZ tape. 😆

I’m glad We get all the euro box art here in aus. I definitely used to judge a book by it’s cover game shopping back in the day

I miss opening the case and reading the booklet that came with it... ahhhhhh the old days.

I remember looking at the covers for games for hours when I was younger. They were so pretty but idk maybe I grew up and lost interest in the covers but I'm pretty sure I stopped looking at the covers because they were so boring and didn't tell me anything about the game.

I love finding Good RU-vid channels.

The borderlands 3 box art is one of the best ones ive ever seen imo. I could stare at that baby for hours

I luckily got the shadow of the colossus and Ico back to back game, and when you’re booting up the game to choose which one you wanna play, they have the original box art versions and I love that so much... I am so glad I didn’t even know about the American version until this video •-•

I'm from u.k and i got the gorgeous ico cover but I just laughed when I just saw the u.s cover now 😂

You forgot to mention bethesda/id's greatly appreciated decision to make doom's box art reversable, sure the one they chose to face outwards was just.....cheesy and uninspired, but the alternate design that they included was GORGEOUS and a badass nod to the game's origin.

It's really cool you pointed out Resistance 3's box art. Imo Resistance 1 and 3 had some of the most memorable covers ever. For the X1 and PS4 era, I can't think of many cool game covers, maybe just Sunset Overdrive, ARMS, and Nioh 2. Those were solid. For third party, maybe Rainbow 6 Siege... I like how simplistic it was but how effectively it communicated the essence of the gameplay.

Interesting points - it's made me think about when I go to the shops here in the UK and go down the international aisle. I always think the American food packaging looks really old/badly designed, like they haven't been updated since the 90s or something.