Bioshock publisher 2K Games recently enlisted (read: bribed) fans on its
Cult of Rapture community site to design the cover of the Bioshock Limited Edition for them. I can't blame them, that's more time they have to play the game! Thousands entered, but only a few won.
Without further ado here are the three winners:
3rd Place(Alun Bestor)
Not too shabby, but certainly a little too abstract. I'm not sure if that symbol has any significance in the game but it seems kind of random to make the focus of a box cover. It also looks unfinished, with nothing going on in the periphery of the cover. That said, still better than anything that I would've designed, especially if the symbol was created by this guy.
2nd Place (Jason Montgomery)
Wow. Now THAT is a nice design. It completely incorporates the art deco style so prominent in the game itself and just overall looks awesome. I love how it features the image of the city from the logo and depicts Rapture as it was no doubt originally conceived, as a beacon of light. This guy definitely put some thought and creativity into his design. Congratulations on winning Jason, I can't wait to bring this bad boy home! Wait...what's that? This isn't the winner? You mean, there's a cover better than this? Well alright then, bring it on!
1st Place (i.e. what you'll be bringing home on August 22nd) (Adam Meyer)
Alright, I'm ready, where's the cover that's better than the 2nd place entry? Oh, I see, it's inside this envelope with the logo on it, cool!
Hey, this isn't an envelope...
Oh. This is the winner. No, no, it's cool. See, it's got the logo and...umm, the logo. Damn, that's a nice looking logo.
In all fairness, this design looks the most producable out of the three finalists and the 2nd place design didn't feature the logo at all (even though the entire design is inspired by it). It's not bad by any means, just compared to the 2nd place entry it's not even in the same league.
Here's to hoping Jason Montgomery's design gets used somewhere in the packaging, perhaps on the back of the case or at least the cover of the instruction manual.
What they should do is use Jason's design as the etching on the metal case and put Adam's logo on the slip case. Bam. Problem solved, everyone wins. Well, except the third place guy. I'm sure he'll try harder next time.
The Cult of Rapture via
Kotaku
Shadowrun is an interesting case not because it is a particularly good cover or even because the PC version is different from the 360 version. What's odd is that they're different while being almost exactly the same. I'm not sure why Microsoft decided to make the cover art different for the different platforms but having it be the same exact design just with slightly variant art makes it even stranger.
