| General Category > General Discussion |
| Game Case World - product review |
| (1/32) > >> |
| wiggy:
So, I ordered a Game Case World item the other day to see if the quality is really what he says it is. This is his "exclusive" Earthbound cover. Here's a excerpt from the auction: --- Quote from: GCW ---Having an Earthbound poster on my wall, I wondered if I couldn't recreate the feel of Mother and have more Starman power on the front. I also hated the back that was in use on the vertical template for Earthbound and knew it needed changed. I carefully traced out the Starman and worked for hours on the details of the cover. Along the way I found a couple of graphics to include of characters online so I didn't draw 100% of the case, but most of the work was hand drawn by myself. It's a fun similar design to the original box that prints really well having come from vector (scalable) graphics and being born in Photoshop. Although this is fandom and not a box scan, I hope you enjoy it anyway, it was inspired by Earthbound and the MOTHER case Cheers :-) -- Paula Graphic Designer for Game Case World --- End quote --- So, it seems like a lot of love went into this cover. As she said, there is indeed some found art, Shenske's template (obviously), and a bit of fan art. --- Quote from: GCW ---Premium Paper and Ink Used --- End quote --- It's printed on plain old bond paper. You know, the same stuff that you'd print a grade school book report on. It's cellophane thin. Here you can see where the ink has saturated the paper and it's warped as a result. The stuff that I use is .22mm thick, this stuff is .1, the exact same thickness as the stack of cheap-o copy paper that's sitting next to me. Looks like dye-based ink. That's not at all premium, for those not in the know. Pigment-based inks are NOT water soluble as seen in an old print of mine (top). Further evidence of cheap, dye-based ink. You can see here what is supposed to be a neutral 50% gray is actually quite green. This shouldn't be an issue if you were to use OEM dye-based inks, but generic China-made Amazon inks will cause serious color issues like this. It could be poor printer calibration, but I doubt it. Also, dye-based inks are NOT archival and neither is bond paper. WAY to acidic. This cover will be a faded mess in about 6 months regardless of exposure to sun. In fact, I'll even perform a test. I'll print one here on my paper and printer and store both with the rest of my games (where there is very little natural light) and we'll check back in a bit to see how both are doing. The logo on the front is seriously low res. It would probably take about 15 minutes to rebuild in Illustrator. Seems like a strange oversight for something that's so very custom. Conclusion: for the price, totally not worth it IMO. I think I paid 10 bucks shipped. Figure about .60-.70 for the UGC (must adjust for the shipping costs to him, which can be considerable), a very small amount for the paper (less than .05), nearly nothing for the cheap ink, and then .50 for the bubble mailer. This isn't a service that I'd employ anyway, obviously. But I figured it would be worthwhile to do a writeup considering he's using everything that we've created to make some extra cash for himself. Here's the high res for anyone that wants it. Since it's a scan of a Shenske template cover, I went ahead and dumped it back into that template. Seemed odd to have a scan of something that was available as infinite res vector art :P Link removed by Snowcone - I received a legal copyright takedown notice for this cover. The scanned version was bad, this is actually now completely redone version. Pretty much identical but completely redone and upgraded. |
| Maben:
Thanks for the info Wiggy! I don't do nearly the type of quality control you do on covers, but even mine I get professionally printed and come out great. I originally decided to do my own since it was a lot cheaper than going through game case world, but I always assumed that paying that premium came at least with a premium product. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. When marketing a product like this, with the description he gives it, the work he takes from others, and the price that is charged, the cases should have a top-of-the-line feel to them in my opinion. Your time and money are appreciated Wiggy. |
| wiggy:
No prob! ;) I've definitely had my differences with the guy, and I do NOT like what he does, but I did my absolute best to compile an unbiased review of his product. I will say this, he was quite prompt when it came to shipping. The case arrived within a few days and he's quite literally as far away from me as he can be within the continental US (about 2,500 miles :o). |
| Beastman1975:
even if he closed up shop tomorrow someone would take his place best way to deal with these situations is spread the word about the cover project as far as you can that way people will at least know they can get the covers themselves for free . wonder if snowcone ever thought of makeing a facebook page in order to spread the word ( or would that draw unwanted attention from the game companies ) |
| Arseen:
Well at least Game Case World nowadays mentions (even links to) us on their front page, but not on their Ebay auctions. But lets stop this before this again gets dirty. We can't stop them. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |