From PR Fail to PR Win: BioShock Infinite’s Cover Art

BioShock Infinite is a great game. So great, in fact, that I’m unwilling to rush through it for review. Instead, I want to talk about the controversy that erupted last year when its cover art was revealed. My review will be posted this time next week.

BioShock Infinite’s cover art went down badly with gamers. Infinite is a game of considerable thematic depth, and it’s difficult to explain succinctly what it’s about. You certainly can’t accurately capture the essence of the game with any single image. Bless 2K, though, because that’s what they tried to do. This is what my copy of BioShock Infinite looked like when it arrived in the post:

The promise of waggle controls softens the blow, though, right?

I can hardly imagine a blander choice of cover art than this picture of the player character, Booker DeWitt. BioShock Infinite boasts the beautiful, sky-borne city of Columbia as its setting, but besides a barely visible zeppelin in the top left corner, there’s nothing here to tell you that’s the case. There’s no sign of Elizabeth, the game’s most important character, or of Songbird, her guardian and constant pursuer. There’s no hint of the magical powers the player can wield, or the numerous interesting themes that Infinite incorporates into its narrative. Instead, we get a rugged white dude holding a gun over his shoulder and looking moody. Hardly scintillating stuff. It may as well be a cover for any number of other third or first-person shooters. It’s also misleading; the realistic style is not at all representative of the game’s actual, more Disney-esque look.

Ken Levine, Creative Director at Irrational Games and the public face of BioShock Infinite, gave an interview to Wired.com shortly after the backlash kicked off, and explained the box art with the following:

I wanted the uninformed, the person who doesn’t read IGN… to pick up the box and say, okay, this looks kind of cool, let me turn it over. Oh, a flying city. Look at this girl, Elizabeth on the back. Look at that creature. And start to read about it, start to think about it.

Let me be clear that I’m not trying to criticise Ken Levine here. I highly doubt that BioShock Infinite’s rotten box art was his idea. After all, Levine clashed with other members of his team when they wanted to remove Elizabeth from Infinite, so it’s clear he’s someone who will fight to realise his artistic vision. However, I have to take this quote at face value, and it begs the question: if you thought people would be interested in Elizabeth, Columbia, and Songbird, why hide them away on the back of the box? Frontloading the game’s more interesting characters would attract far more attention than the dull cover that was eventually settled upon.

The main issue with the cover art, though, wasn’t that it didn’t seem likely to sell the game. Instead, fans were annoyed that a series they’d invested in because of its unique take on the first-person shooter was about to release a new instalment with jarringly conformist cover art. Not the end of the world, perhaps, but BioShock Infinite had been promoted using great art ever since its unveiling in late 2010. In the eyes of BioShock Infinite’s most vocal fans, the cover was an indefensible concession to fans of generic shooters. Probably unfairly, Irrational and 2K were vilified.

The solution was simple but brilliant. A poll was set up on Irrational’s website allowing fans to vote for one of six artworks, with the winner to be printed on the flipside of the game’s inlay when it shipped. All anyone buying the game who wanted a more artful cover had to do was remove the insert and flip it. Not only did this democratic flourish calm the rage over the cover art, it also gave fans a sense of having something special. Everyone else would have the dull, generic Booker cover, but the real fans, they’d know to flip it and have the alternative design instead. All of the options offered in the poll were better than the original monstrosity, but the winner was truly something special. After some fiddling, then, my copy of BioShock Infinite now looks like this:

I display this strategically when people visit so they know I'm cultured

It’s wonderful, artistic, and mysterious, much like BioShock Infinite itself. Ironically, I think this artwork is far more likely to pique the interest of someone who knows nothing about BioShock than the actual cover, and it’s a shame that this isn’t what we’ll see on store shelves.

Many companies in gaming make missteps in their PR. Often, they react by issuing a non-apology and end up digging themselves into an ever-deeper pit in the minds of their fans. Instead, Irrational and 2K listened to concerns of their core fans and issued a cost effective fix that kept everyone happy. Even as a linguist, I can acknowledge that actions sometimes speak louder than words.