By Its Cover

Before the NES, before the Atari 2600…

Fairchild’s Channel F was the first video game console to run games directly from a cartridge. While Magnavox’s Odyssey had game cards that …
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Early computer game history often gets overlooked.

I’m just as guilty as anyone of overlooking computer game history. So for this series, I made a conscious effort to broaden my …
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“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the saying goes.

This age-old idiom originally meant you shouldn’t judge a person by their shabby clothing. But in a literal sense, I …
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Now that we’ve done the best, it’s time for the worst. Most “worst box art” round-ups just post a bunch of funny-looking covers that lend themselves to a single sentence of snarky commentary. But not this one.* Our list aims to point out box art that’s bad from a design perspective, and attempts to explain why.

*On the other hand, if you were funny-looking images with snarky commentary is what you were looking for, there’s also a little of that at the end of the article. Read More

Welcome back to the only annual box art round-up that attempts to explain why each image is successful from a design perspective. They say you shouldn’t judge a book (or …
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We’ve covered the worst box art of the year, now it’s time to look at the best. An effective videogame cover does two things: it stand out on a shelf next to other box art, and it gets across the general tone or concept of the game. The following covers are ones that I think accomplished this in the most stylish and eye-pleasing way. Read More

Every year, several sites feature their own article about the worst videogame box art of the year. But often times the box art featured actually bad designs, so much as …
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It’s said you should never judge a book by its cover. But the simple fact is that we all do it. We can’t help ourselves.

The job of a cover …
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