[quote name='Fanboy']Sooooo.... a baby's head covered in graffiti screams "excellent puzzle game marketing concept" to you? What was it like working at Acclaim? Was it hard to get work done over the sound of people flushing away garbage bags full of money?[/quote]
I was the Creative Director for Acclaim. I'm responsible for that package.
Here's the story. We were doing the previous rev of the game. Needed art. I did a stock photo search for bubbles and the fat baby blowing the spit bubble popped up.
Let's back peddle a bit. I'm a slightly warped individual. I see nothing wrong with runnign through the building in Gold Mango shorts with a towel tied around my neck while making airplane sounds.
I mocked it up (sans shades) and of course it did not fly.
Couple of years go by and I've got a new baby daughter. I have a cool picture of her wearing my shades.
(Shut up, all parents do it and so will you if you manage to find someone to marry your sorry ass and give you the gift of kids.)
Coincidently we are doing another BAM at the time. So I dig up the old shot, photochop the sunglasses onto it and put the screen shot reflection in.
I present it again and they say, "OK focus test it"
68% of the people love it. 11% HATE IT, they are repulsed. The rest are on the fence.
None of that matters.
100% of them say that if they saw it on the shelf they would have to pick it up to see what it's about.
That's what matters.
This was a game that we spent $0 marketing, nada, nothing, ziclh.
Store level interest was our only avenue.
So the goal was never to create a great box or even a bad box.
The goal was to create a box that would be noticed.
So whether you love it or hate it is irrelevent. it did its job, it got noticed.
er. You know how HUGE that was back then??! DO YOU!?
