Art Affects Sales?

Today’s Gamasutra article concerns itself on the cover art of a video game: how it affects the sales of a game. 

‘A Journalistic Bent’ is a regular column in which our roving reporter takes a hard look at all the issues of gaming, games development, and the games themselves. This week’s column looks at art assets and how to improve them.

The State Of The Art

This month I’ve been working on some game magazines. It’s a return to familiar territory and one that arrives with some familiar frustrations. The experience has reminded is just how tricky it is for magazines to get hold of good game artwork, and how often that failure means that a game doesn’t look the slightest bit impressive when it is presented on a page. The frequency with which developers and publishers fail their game through shabby artwork really is alarming.

Have you looked at some of the game boxes on the shelves recently? More than half those currently sitting in my local store are a shambles, and I refuse to believe it’s for want of capable artists.

Just a few minutes browsing various art outlets on the web reveals a wealth of starving (probably) and highly talented artists. These people need work. But there are other problems too, problems unrelated to the talents of the development team’s individual crayon-masters. These problems often come from the assumptions of marketing teams and art directors – folks who really should know better.
More at: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10674

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