Earlier this month, Irrational Games revealed the official box art for their upcoming first-person shooter BioShock Infinite, featuring a surly looking Booker holding a gun over his shoulder against a backdrop of cliche' sparks and flames.
The cover art was a bit of a surprise for a creative and forward-moving franchise like BioShock, prompting debate in the gaming community.
Ken Levine, Creative Director and Co-Founder at Irrational Games, went on record explaining the box art decision, saying that the original BioShock cover art would not have captured an audience beyond hardcore gamers.
A casual player might look at it and have no idea what the game is about and simply move on to the more obvious covers of something like Battlefield or Call of Duty.
"There are plenty of products that I buy that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about," he said. "My salad dressing. If there's a new salad dressing coming out, I would have no idea. I use salad dressing; I don't read Salad Dressing Weekly.
I don't care who makes it, I don't know any of the personalities in the salad dressing business.
...
We need to be successful to make these types of games, and I think it's important, and I think the cover is a small price for the hardcore gamer to pay."
Like they tend to do, the Internet came together to grind their teeth over something essentially irrelevant and were so vocal that Irrational Games has decided to offer a reversible cover for the game, so that you can flip it around on day one and never see that apparently soul-destroying box art again.
Being as great as they are, Irrational Games has offered the secondary box art up for the fans to vote on, providing three unique choices and leaving it in our hands. One of the chief complaints on the original art was the lack of Elizabeth, so Irrational Games has included her in just about every alternate design.
There are some truly gorgeous alternate options here, so make sure you check all of them out at http://irrationalgames.com/insider/poll/ and cast your vote today. BioShock Infinite ships on March 26th, 2013 so make sure you cast your vote as soon as possible.
