Video Game Packaging - Box Art

The term box art (also called a game cover or cover art) can refer to the artwork on the front of PC or console game packaging. Box art is usually flashy and bombastic, in the vein of movie posters, and serves a similar purpose. Historically, art featured on the box has been in excess of what the computer or console was technically capable of displaying. Additionally, screenshots on the back of the box often mixed in-game sequences with pre-rendered sections.

On the cover, many things are listed, such as the name and logo of the game, what platform the game is for, the rating (ESRB for North America, PEGI for Europe and CERO for Japan), logo of the publisher and/or developer, and quotes from magazines or websites.

As part of the marketing effort to build hype, box art is usually released a few months before the actual game.

Many people find particular box art strange, or poor, such as Phalanx and Mega Man. Often this is the result of art used for a localized version of an import title. Many early releases, especially Nintendo, replaced Japanese art with original US artwork, such as the Dragon Warrior and the Final Fantasy series. The cover of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one example of US art that replaces an Ayami Kojima cover. Recent import titles have made it a habit to retain the original cover art.

The boxes of Nintendo games (NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS and Wii) from PAL territories all have a small coloured triangle on their spines, but in each territory it's a different colour (to show the region that copy of the game came from). Some common ones are: Green = UK, Pink = Spain, Red = France, Light Blue = Italy, Dark Blue = Germany, Brown = Australia. There are 49 different colours. As well as geographic region it also has to do with the language of the box art and booklets; though PAL region Nintendo games are made in Germany, the triangles show the region that the game is shipped to.