Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Back of Your Box

Video Games and movies all have something on the back of their box. Most of the time, a person cannot open the box and even if they could they can't play the game or movie there on the spot. So, the box is really your only chance to sell the game to the player if they have no prior knowledge of the game.

The job of the front of the box is simple: catch the player's eye. Make them look at it. Make them interested enough to pick it up. From there the back of the box will take over. But the front should be covered with something interesting that perhaps reveals a bit about the game and (of course) shows off it's name.

The Front of the Box for One of My Favorite Games: Golden Sun
Golden Sun's front put the name in nice big letters, so you catch the name immediatly. It's also quite colorful, and is detail packed. It demands that you pick it up and analyze it. If you get your player (to be) to pick up the box, the battle is already half won.

Compare to this Box Cover: Haze
So again, we know the name, but what else do we know? We know that it's for 18+ year olds, has guns, and that there are humans in those suits. Other than that... nothing. Now, remember, the main goal of the front is only to draw attention. Does this draw your attention? Except for the bright yellow on the otherwise grey cover, nothing jumps out at me here.

A Third Example: Alone in the Dark (Remember the famous Stone scene from the voice acting post?)
Kinda the same problem Haze had, but at least the name is quite distinct. The A in Haze could be confused as being something else.

Now for the back. Once the player has picked the box up, you have to win the second half of the fight: Get them to buy it. Now. And not buy that game next to it (unless that happens to be your as well, in which case you want them to buy both!).

So what goes on the back? The interesting stuff. Give the player something to be excited about. Make them want to take it home and save the world or whatever. You've got give them enough that they want to know more, so the cool stuff, but don't give anything away. Let's look at the back of these examples, shall we?

Note: In order to make the text legible, I had to make the pictures wider than will fit. The important stuff is there though, and you can click on the picture to get the full version.

Golden Sun, The Lost Age (I couldn't find the back of the first box, so here's the front and back of the second Golden Sun game)

Now, by nature of being a sequel, this back is a bit different that the back of a box for the first game in a series. Here, the player already has knowledge going in. We assume they've played the first, and that's why they've picked up the second. So, we give them a hint as to where the game is going from the first, and what has changed. More Summons! Continue Your Game! These same rules apply for an expansion pack as well as a sequel.

The Back Cover of Haze (Shows a different front as well, the first front I showed was the North American and Australian version, not sure what region this is for. Which front do you like better?)
Does this sell the game to you? Do you want to take this home and play it? Doesn't sound interesting to me, but then again I'm not big into First Person Shooters anyway. The only additional info I've gained is that this group has been sent in to quell an uprising and they use something called NECTAR.

Now, does anyone see the fatal flaw? Look again. Still don't see it? Let me give you a hint by telling you something that the box doesn't, you are one of these NECTAR using soldiers.

Give up? Look at the first of the three bullets again. "Use the powers of the rebels and the Mantel to..." wait a second! If I'm one of the soldiers, then how do I use the rebel's powers? There's no way to use the powers of both without....

Congratulations Haze, you have just given away your "major" plot twist on the back of your box. You wouldn't want to surprise your players with a faction change plot twist, no Sir! You should always tell your player that they will betray their friends and switch sides before they start playing. Otherwise it would be false advertising!

Now for Alone in the Dark to Face Judgement
Are you hungry to discover the secret of Central Park? That was the goal of that back cover. Not sure I'm sold, not really any info there. Though unlike Haze, it hasn't sold out any major plot points or been overloaded with info. So, perhaps the two represent the two extremes. Haze has "too much" info with giving away plot points. Alone in the Dark is the opposite, giving away only that New York is involved somehow.

Now, if you know me at all, you should understand that I've chosen these games carefully and what that means is that Alone in the Dark also sports a fatal flaw on the back of it's box. We've already covered that it's not a plot point, so what is it? Give it another look. Still can't put your finger on it? Go back over the features. None of them jump out as being less than feature quality? Take a good hard look at the one in the middle bottom. Read it over a couple of times and think about what it means.

So... not having to play the game is a point in its favor? Why play the game at all then? I thought that's what YouTube was for. Are there really so few good things about this game that this feature makes into the top five "Back of the Box Worthy" list? Personally, that just kills my interest in the game. If they dropped that one, the other four might have sold it to me, though I think I'd like something a little better than "Exhilarating Gameplay". Sure, Gameplay is the crux of a game's goodness level, but putting it there like that sounds like they're trying too hard.

To wrap this up, remember that your box is a key component in selling your game. Eye catching front, and informative back that tells the player why they want to now buy and play this game. Choose wisely. If you want players to invest in your game, invest in your box!


"Uuhhh... what did I come in here for?"

6 comments:

  1. I fail to see how the Golden Sun cover gives any useful information. Perhaps just seeing the characters reprising their roles from the previous game in the series is enough.... To me, it's no different than the other covers you've shown. Would you enlighten me please?

    BTW you can click on any of these images to see them without being cut off. I was first viewing this post in Google Reader, and they weren't cut off there either.

    This was an interesting post; I'm especially struck by the parallels between game covers and book covers, game backs and book backs. The only two differences I see are that books backs often have recommendations from well-known authors or critics on them (I haven't seen that on games, but it's not unthinkable), and that you can open the book and browse it. But authors get little or no control over their covers (or even their titles!). They might get to make a start at the descriptive blurb on the back, but everyone else in the production pipeline gets to revise.

    Except for the very smallest game companies, I'd expect the marketing dept to determine what goes on the box. I know in the camera / scanner business, we've been directed to throw some really good ideas by the wayside to work on something (anything!) that would fit on a hang-tag or after a bullet on the box: something that would "make people buy." Point-of-sale "communication" (advertisement) is really hard, and incredibly important -- they're standing there in the store with money in their hand, and you need them to pick YOU.

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  2. Hi Tbiz!
    My son (16) is a big games player, and I have to admit, in all the years I've been buying him games, not once was it the box that attracted him. His purchases are typically guided by advertisements and word of mouth. When he goes into a store it's with a specific game in mind. True, a box could catch his eye while he's there, but to my knowledge that's never happened.

    For me, however, when I'm shopping for his birthday or the holidays, I am very much attracted by the box. (He was not allowed to use games with guns until he turned 16.)

    On an aside, there's a post over at romanceuniversity.org that may interest you. It's about turning a popular book into a downloadable video game. I read it and thought of you... you being the only gamer I kind of know.

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  3. John: My point was that this back is different than most, being a sequel. There's a bunch of info the player is already bringing in. I really wnated to find the back of the first box, but could not. Poop.

    I already said that, you DO read my post right?

    I originally had books in here, but I took them out later. They work too differently. With a game you can't try it out right there (unless there happens to be a demo near by). If I see your book on the shelf and am intrigued, I can read the first chapter before I buy it. There are lots of similarities sure, but a bunch of differences too. Some games do have review quotes on them. And some sequel books have nothing on them for the same reason game sequel don't, I believe Harry Potter does this?

    And who said a marketing person can't read this blog? I try and cover all aspect of game development!

    Wendy: Welcome back! And yes, word of mouth is very powerful in the video game world. Some people are like your son, but others (like what it sounds you do) just go in with fifty bucks and come out with a game. The latter catagory is (obviously) the one we are trying to catch here. But also, there's the idea of turning people off with bad box design. If you come in to buy my latest game Murder Quest 2: More Chainsaws! (a game I would NEVER make by the way) and see that it has a picture of a little girl riding a pink unicorn under a rainbow on the front... see the problem?

    I had actually already seen that book to game conversion(courtesy of John actually!). I'm not too interested in it as a game myself, but I am curious to see how it does. It's basically an experiment, and I always like to see how those turn out. Most games based off movies are absolutly horrible. So if we can get a good game based off a book, it can help turning all forms of media into games.

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  4. I think it's interesting how digital media is invading all aspects of our life, even the romance novel. Not only in e-books and e-readers, John's topic of the moment, but books you can download to a Gameboy, books transformed into video games.

    Apparently the game developer did research beforehand and determined most women wanted the game to follow the same storyline as the book. I'm not sure I see the fun in that. I think it would be more entertaining to have options, to see how random variables effect a story. They also spoke of cut scenes, like I see you've mentioned and 2d vs 3d graphics. It seems the game will be based on games and puzzles, which apparently appeal to women more than action. Well, as a woman, I do like games and puzzles, but action is good, too. (Just not the shoot-em-up, disemboweled body kind.) Anyway, I think it's good to know what's out there. Even if it doesn't interest you, it may come in handy at some point.

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  5. I find it amusing that you call it "invading". Personally, I like this direction. (not sure how I feel about e-books though, I'm going to leave those out for now) But then again, I am up to my ears in the digital world, so when things go digital it makes it easier for me.

    Now about the game. (my area!) Following the story line something that basically all book/movie games do and there is a problem with that. If you've read the book or watched the movie, then you already know what's going to happen. I also find that when they do deviate from the established story for whatever reason, it is the worst part of the game. Maybe that's just personal opinion, but that's been true of every time I've run into it. There's also the problem that there's a lot of parts of a book that make a great story, but a poor game. The same things for a good story don't immediatly make for a fun play.

    So, we could take some creative liberties and switch up the story a bit right? Unfortunatly, the answer is no. We run into two problems when we do this: 1. Fans of the book cry that the game isn't like the book (see any movie made from a book ever). 2. The author could get mad. Would you get mad if I took your book, made it into a game, and when you played you found that it had nothing to do with your original story? If you answered no, then let's make a deal here and now, because most of the time the answer is yes.

    And finally, puzzles vs action. Unfortuantly, when we gamers say Action we do mean guns, swords, fireballs, blood, and death. That just is how Action elements are defined in this day and age of games. Now, a puzzle based game can have action moments. You could have to duck into a closet before the guard comes into the room, HURRY! There can be plenty of tense moments that don't include Action as we normally define it, yet still give the player a nice thrill. The adventure games I grew up on, The King's Quest series(exempting Mask of Eternity), were all about puzzle solving, had little violence (a climatic sword fight where you clicked the sword on the guy, watched the two swing at each other, waited until the princess stabbed the guy in the shoulder with a knife, distracting him long enough for you to hit him over the head with the flat of your blade, knocking him out. Only blood spilled came out of his shoulder.), and no gore (you didn't see any blood when there would have been). Desipte this, there were plenty of tense moments and the games were truly exciting.

    So I think your romance game can still be plenty fun and exciting without including "Action". This is a direction I hope to turn games back towards. I think real time violence evolved when computers got fast enough to handle it. I think we need to head back a bit.

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  6. A very enlightening post! And I agree about pulling back on the violence. I believe children get sensitized to it. I think I mentioned my son is a big fan of Modern Warfare 2. A few weeks ago, while looking out my bedroom window into the backyard he said, "This is a perfect sniping spot." Just what every mother wants to hear! I encouraged him to sign up for track in addition to his soccer, and I arranged for him to take a soccer referee course so he could work on the weekends. Obviously he was spending too much time involved in a simulated war zone.

    Now a game that simulates building things aimed at future engineers and architects....that I'd be a big fan of.

    Nice chatting!

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