Has cover art ever been a factor when buying a game?

[corn619]

This whole hate on the U.S Heavy Rain cover art had me thinking. Has cover art ever been even a little bit of a deciding factor when buying a game? While for me its no for the most part, though its always cool to have some cool art to go with a great game. What about you guys? Have you ever been fooled into buying a game due to its awesome cover art. Or has bad cover art ever steered you away from buying a game?

[Yukima]

I don't buy games just because they have awesome cover art - I like to do research first and make sure the game is good before deciding to get it based on the cover art. There have been some games I've gotten that had nice cover art but absolutely awful gameplay. And a few that had nice cover art and really are good games! If it turns out that another version (Japanese or any other) of a game has better cover art, I'd hunt down a high-quality scan of it and print it out to put with the game... or buy that version of the game too.

[jfe2]

It played a big factor when I was a kid. I would walk up to the video store to rent SNES games, and since I couldn't use the internet to research what I wanted to play back then, I would pretty much just base my rental off of a game's cover art.

I remember seeing Earthbound at the video store all the time, but unfortunately I thought the cover art made it seem lame. On the other hand, Chrono Trigger's cover art totally drew me in, and the humanoid frog and his friends just looked too cool for me to pass up!

[Hobie-wan]

Box art steered me a lot back in the NES game renting days. It took too many times for me to figure out that Bandai NES games were pretty universally crap. I specifically remember avoiding Mega Man because of the artwork. Granted I found out with #2 that it wasn't really my kind of game, but yeah. Karnov is the only game that springs to mind that I bought that looked cool, but I was really disappointed with back in the day.

Now obviously its easier to know about the game first and at least see some gameplay video if not try a demo.

[(-_-)]

It does to people who don't research or know anything about the games they are buying. Which is why most covers look like shit. Cover's aren't that important to me because I already know about a game before I purchase it, but when you're a kid you want that game with the cool looking guy with the gun. At least then you know the game is about shooting stuff. I liked the Heavy Rain cover art a lot, but I guess they figured it didn't tell you enough about the game itself to appease those distributing the north American version.

[the7k]

Considering making custom covers is a hobby of mine - no.

However, most people judge a book by its cover. Having a God Awful cover can be the kiss of death for a lot of games. Just ask Ico.

[corn619]

Considering making custom covers is a hobby of mine - no.

However, most people judge a book by its cover. Having a God Awful cover can be the kiss of death for a lot of games. Just ask Ico.

Yeah, I passed on Ico for awhile due to the cover art. It looked like a crappy launch game in the vein of Eternal Ring among other crap launch games. It wasn't until I read about it in a GMR mag in the "grab these games now before there gone forever section." I remember seeing it at the Gamecrazy the day before that day I went back and picked it up for like $9.00.

[MrPopo]

Back when I used to browse EB Games a good set of cover art could make me look at a game I hadn't heard of and get me to read the back of the box. Now I buy everything off Amazon, which means that half the games don't even have cover art when I put in my preorder.

[darthmunky]

I know people who didn't buy the first Mega Man game when it came out because the box art was so terrible.

[Ducky]

While boxart isn't a factor when looking for a new game, I pick between the regions for the best boxart of a game I want. For instance, there's no competition between the PAL boxarts for Ico and Resident Evil 4 when compared to the NTSC ones. When they are the same, I like to buy the NTSC versions.
Although recently, the Wii's bilingual blurbs have put me off. What do you think of them?