Industry Questions Whether Women Box Art Hurts Sales

Whilst the roles for female videogame characters are getting better, they’re still lagging behind the men. There’s only so long that Lara Croft can hold the whole of gaming woman-kind on her pixelated shoulders. That aside, it seems that even when women do get equal billing in a game, they may not make it to the cover. Sadly, there’s a perception that putting women on the cover of a game kills sales. The good news is that some game developers are standing up for their female characters and putting them in the spotlight, regardless of focus groups and pressure from the top.

The issue of girls on games covers all hit the proverbial fan when developer Irrational Games released the cover art for Bioshock: Infinite. It’s not overstating to say that said cover caused outrage. Fans were dismayed at the lack of imagination, and others lamented the fact that Elizabeth, the female lead, wasn’t featured at all. Instead we were presented with a stock white guy with gun, albeit with burning American flag in the background, which could represent any game.

Irrational boss, Ken Levine stepped into the fray to justify the decision. Levine said this, "We went and did a tour…around to a bunch of, like, frat houses and places like that. People who were gamers. Not people who read IGN. And [we] said, so, have you guys heard of BioShock? Not a single one of them had heard of it." Then he sat back and looked at the cover art for BioShock 1, "And I tried to step back and say, if I’m just some guy, some frat guy, I love games but don’t pay attention to them…if I saw the cover of that box, what would I think? And I would think, this is a game about a robot and a little girl."

So in trying to appeal to the mainstream, Elizabeth was pushed to the back of the box because apparently frat boys want men with guns on the cover of games. I could have told Levine that without the need of a costly focus group exercise. The question is, do we want to perpetuate the frat boy mentality or do we want to say, you know what, this game’s got a girl in it and she’s not in a bikini, but that’s okay?

In Levine’s defense, he reasons that game covers aren’t for fans; they’re for the casual gamer who’s never heard of BioShock, the one who doesn’t know who Hideo Kojima is and doesn’t care. They just walk into a shop and browse the games, so the cover art has to convince them to part with $60. That means the fans have to put up with generic covers that say nothing to them about the game they’re so eagerly awaiting.

To appease the fans Irrational released some beautiful alternate game covers to print off. I still think Levine should have had the courage of his convictions. I think you can create a cover with a woman on it that’s dynamic and engaging enough to woo the fratboy demographic. Check out the alternate cover Booker and Elizabeth, used as a graphic for my column this week, as a case in point.

The question of cover girls came up again when Naughty Dog revealed the box art for The Last Us. After the BioShock debacle, everyone half-expected another fumble. It made headlines when Ellie was featured on the cover, alongside Joel. In fact, she’s the dominant figure. However, interviews with the Naughty Dog team have revealed why their decision to include the female protagonist is the exception and not the rule.

Creative director and script writer for The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann said in an interview about the cover of the game, "I believe there’s a misconception that if you put a girl or a woman on the cover, the game will sell less. I know I’ve been in discussions where we’ve been asked to push Ellie to the back and everyone at Naughty Dog just flat-out refused."

This is all sounds like those dark days when the fashion industry thought that putting a black model on the cover of a magazine would harm sales. Naomi Campbell and other black models before her made great strides in changing that, but here we are, fighting these same arguments. BioWare is known for breaking new ground, but still didn’t put fem Shep on the cover of any of its games. They made a concession by putting her on the reversible cover. Why not go female and be proud? Hey, it’s the 21st century. I think we can handle it.

And it’s a similar story for the upcoming Beyond: Two Souls from Quantic Dream. The cover was unveiled, recently, and unsurprisingly, for a game that centers on Jodie, a female character, she is on the cover. This shouldn’t be worthy of news, but it is because whenever they can, it seems that publishers want male-dominated or centric imagery to market games.

Quantic Dream has said that it came under pressure from Sony’s marketing team to give Jodie a gun. I’m supposing females with guns are better than just females being a bit too…you know…female. Fortunately, the Quantic team refused.

Executive producer of Beyond: Two Souls, Guillaume de Fondaumi’re, told Gamespot, "Indeed, there is some action in Beyond. But if we, for instance, put a pack art that’s solely featuring action, first of all it’s not going to be truthful to what the game is and then, your wife for instance, is not going to feel attracted to this. She’ll say ‘ok, well that’s not unique, it’s one of your video games’."

Are Naughty Dog and Quantic Dream the only voices of reason, who seem happy to kick back against the established norm, in the hope that they will appeal to an existing market and maybe entice a new market too? Maybe more female protagonists, who aren’t over sexualised and are then allowed to feature on the cover of games without striking a macho, gun-toting pose will appeal to a different demographic.

I know that making games is expensive and that this industry is a business and needs to make money. I get that, really I do. But do we always have to cater to the lowest common denominator, every, single time? Maybe the marketers need to give gamers more credit. Maybe our benchmark shouldn’t begin and end with frat houses.

Apart from the fact that this approach assumes that women don’t buy games and therefore what appeals to them or non-frat house males doesn’t matter, it also holds us back as an industry. We need to celebrate our artistic endeavors and present things in different ways, rather than just dishing up more of the same, easily digested you-know-what-you-like and you-like-what-you-know style gaming.

Really I’m writing this column to applaud Naughty Dog and Quantic Dream for sticking by their female characters and staying true to their vision. I take my hat off to you and thank you.

Most played: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Most wanted: The Last of Us