Comments on: What I Learned From EQ2’s Box Art

By: David

David — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:49:59 +0000

I agree with Mufflon here, I think it does a decent job of selling the entire EverQuest II game. The only problem though, is that it doesn’t really matter what the box looks like if you can’t find it on store shelves anywhere. I always look around the stores for it out of curiousity but it’s nowhere to be found. Of course, there’s a thousand copies of WoW sitting there…

By: Mufflon

Mufflon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:32:44 +0000

What you appear to be missing is that they were not so much trying to advertise the expasion, as selling the all-in-one package. Since most already paying customers (who are the ones who will want ONLY the new expansion) most likely already know of it and had decided to get it long before the box was realsed. The target demografic is new players, and looking at it from that perspective it makes a lot of sense:

They are avoiding selling it as an expansion (to clear up any confusion as to what is actaually in the box, i.e. the whole game, whith all expansions).

The are putting a picures of the most populus race in the game on the cover (if the old players like Dark Elves, odds are the new ones will too)

The inside picture actually depicts all the expansions to the game: The guy fighting a minotuar is the original game, the dark elf fighting a specter in the destert is Destert of Flames, the ogre fighting a dragon is Kingdom of Sky, the one with the fae is Echoes of Faydwer and lastly the iksar and sarnak fighting is Rise of Kunark.

By: RadarX

RadarX — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:59:15 +0000

I don’t remember the justification they made last year either but yeah it was strictly a marketing thing. Apparently a Dark Elf was more appealing to the demographic than a Sarnak.

I agree completely boxes shouldn’t advertise to veteran players. Leave out entirely the “jargon heavy” specifics especially if you want to market it to new players. Current EQ2 Players will buy expansions, period, so boxes should be aimed at those who haven’t tried EQ2.

Now granted you can’t ignore the jargon completely, as you’ll always find plenty of people that return to the game after an expansion. That needs to be handled through advertising in my opinion though.

By: Cyanbane

Cyanbane — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:25:05 +0000

In my opinion, the cleavage would speak to the audience more directly.

I know it speaks to me a lot around 1am, 4 beers down.

By: brent

brent — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:10:36 +0000

You missed one of the audiences likely targeted by throwing this fellow on the cover.

Women.

Sounds crazy perhaps, since he’s more than a little angry looking, but this box is mostly likely an attempt to stray away from another glossy presentation of Firiona Vie’s cleavage. SOE has been pushing the ‘hot chick’ angle for awhile now, and this was a nice try at something different. Too bad it came off as irrelevant instead.

The ‘glistening zeppelin twins’ box cover has been done time and again to good effect (especially by SOE). Meanwhile, Blizzard has been steamrolling along with a box featuring a similarly cranky male blood elf. (Also note that 3 out of 4 WarCraft III boxes and the expansion also featured rugged male headshots). In my opinion, the cleavage would speak to the audience more directly.

By: Tipa

Tipa — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:14:11 +0000

They should have you do the box text :) There were some stories about choosing to have a generic fantasy image on the cover, but I don’t remember their justification. I bet they wanted it to look like an R A Salvatore book.

The most important thing the box tells people is that it includes all previous expansions, adventure packs, and claim items.

Truly, though. I am not sure if I even bought the box. I’d already downloaded the expansion…