2011: A Year In Orange And Blue Video Game Covers
November 28, 2011 8:00 PM | Danny Cowan
Movie posters are notorious for overusing orange/blue contrast, but video game covers are even worse. It's gotten especially bad over the last year, as I noted in a previous feature.
It's the lack of imagination that gets me, I suppose. These covers almost always follow a strict formula: a vertical line down the middle of the package divides orange and blue, often as a lazy way to distinguish opposing factions. Effectively, game publishers are saying, "There are good guys and bad guys in this game. There will be conflict. You like conflict. Buy our game, idiot."
Publishers also think that some regions are stupider than others, as demonstrated by the difference between the North American and European boxart for Tron: Evolution: Battle Grids. Gamers in the United States are dumb, make no mistake, but at least they're able to grasp the cover art's creativity and subtlety without needing additional color to drive the point home.
(The point, by the way, is that two guys are fighting.)
The phenomenon isn't exclusive to western territories, either; it creeped over to Japan in recent months. It's a good thing, too, because otherwise, you might never know that Nurarihyon no Mago: Hyakki Ryouran Taisen and Sengoku Basara 3: Utage are games in which people solve disagreements with violence.
Namco's a fan, too. You may not realize this, but did you know that fighting games involve people fighting? The red and blue colors say so!
Namco produces appropriately colored accessories as well. Ideally, when you're playing a competitive fighting game, your left hand should be stuffed in a bucket of ice (to keep you cool under pressure), while your other hand should be on fire (to help you push the buttons faster). It's also great if you want a fight stick that looks like a variety pack of Doritos.
Mobile games are also catching on. In Life Is Crime, the red side represents crime, while the blue side is also crime.
Granted, the color scheme actually makes sense with superhero games, even if these covers look like they took all of five seconds to design. "Cyclops is blue! And, uh...crap, who's a bad mutant that wears red? Oh, Magneto!"
So when does the color scheme not make sense? Well if it can apply to an 8-bit demake of a Japanese visual novel, I think it's safe to say that you can use it with anything.
...including dancing games. I'm having trouble seeing the conflict here. Does the orange side represent Stop Diabetes? Maybe we should be teaming up with Stop Diabetes instead of fighting them.
Sometimes, it's hard to tell which is the good side and which is the evil side. I don't care, either. I'm siding with Cookie Monster.
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3 Comments
It's unfortunate how game covers and designs in general have deteriorated lately. I didn't notice the blatant use of orange/blue, though. Interesting find.
Eric | November 29, 2011 12:18 PM
Why does the article titled for and starts about the over-use of orange/blue colors in videogame covers when it is actually about red/blue?
Yes, red/blue is repetitive, and the red/blue split cover opposing sides is a really lazy design, but red/blue is not orange/blue. The whole infamy of orange/blue (or teal/orange) is that Hollywood overuses it, both in posters and inside digitally color-corrected films. Red/blue is just the classic opposing sides color, a more colorful version of white/black. (I guess no one wanted to be yellow.)
I'm not sure if it is worth mentioning that the only orange/blue game cover present is a videogame based on an orange/blue Hollywood film.
And if you really want to do orange/blue, then where is Battlefield 3?
Billy Bissette | November 30, 2011 12:49 PM
"Oh I see it everywhere, so it must be lazy design."
As a designer, let me be the first to say: Who gives a fuck?
JI | December 1, 2011 12:09 AM