PC game covers thread (was: Official PC game template)

[The Warlock]

Okay, so the Entertainment Merchants' Association has had the Official Template for PC games up on their site for a while now, but only in Adobe Illustrator format.

http://www.entmerch.org/pc_game_box_logo_and_box_size.html

I've finally gotten around to downloading the demo version of Illustrator CS2 so I could quickly convert these templates into a 300DPI lossless PNG, so we could use them without haivng Illustrator.

If anyone wants them in 600DPI, tell me within 30 days before this demo version of Illustrator expires.

It looks like the file attachments don't work right on this forum so I'm putting it on Imageshack. Snowcone, if you read this, please host it somewhere more reliable, like here on The Cover Project for instance, as I have no doubt that it'll go down off of Imageshack when we least want it to.






(The EMA also has special templates for online games, but no game publisher seems to be using these, so I didn't bother. Tell me if you need them.)

They're designed for a double-wide STACKPak and not a normal DVD case, but they should be easily modified. In fact, I think I'll do that tomorrow. Stay tuned!

[The Warlock]

My first cover based on this template is done. It is Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition. Unfortunately, I only had 200DPI scans to work from, so if anyone has 300DPI scans of the PC version of Half-Life, please gimme gimme gimme.

I left it in the wide STACKPak form because Half-Life GOTY came with like five discs. Or maybe that was the Platinum edition. Whatever. The one I have has like five discs.

EDIT: I've submitted it to this site but I have it here for impatient people. Disregard those numbers on the thumbnail, the real version is much higher res than that.



I think I'll do Oblivion next. For that one, I'll modify the template, since Oblivion came on one disc.

[The Warlock]

The Oblivion case, in a normal DVD case size. This was also done with 200DPI scans, but it seems about as sharp as the X360 cover on this site that was done in 300DPI. Maybe these were scanned with a better scanner or something. I modified the bottom a bit to make it fit, removing some of the annoying logos. Oh, and there's no ESRB rating on the front anymore; perfectionists can edit that in themselves if they want. The spine was taken from the X360 cover and resized.

EDIT: Disregard the Imageshack tag, this thumbnail links to the full version right here on TCP.



Also, here's the template. It's very similar to the EMA's normal template, but the spine is narrower to fit a normal DVD case, and I stacked the words to fit. I think it came out well. I wish they would use something like this instead of having one-disc games come in extra-large STACKPaks.



I'll do one for CDs instead of DVDs tomorrow, maybe, or whenever I get to a one- or two-disc CD game.

[CYRiX]

I'm guessing the original template is for the wide dvd cases new pc games go in then.

[CYRiX]

half-life 2:

click for high rez
it has been uploaded

[The Warlock]

I'm guessing the original template is for the wide dvd cases new pc games go in then.

Indeed it is. Not that that's so bad, I mean, a lot of my old, caseless PC games have like four or five discs.

Another cover and the promised PC-CD thin template. This one is Grand Theft Auto 3. The cover itself is hacked from the PS2 version, since it had the same boxart anyway. I removed all the PS2 branding so you can't really tell and changed the back to fill in some of the blank space that resulted.

Careful, this'll run your black ink tank low. (sidenote: anyone know of a decent place, preferably online, that sells third-party or refilled HP ink cartridges? Specifically HP #21 and #22.  Preferably cartridges that don't suck.)

This one fit on Imageshack, although I had to turn the JPEG compression higher than I'd like. A less-compressed version was submitted to TCP.



And the template:



Cyrix, I like the HL2 case but I still think I want to do one of my own eventually.

[The Warlock]

Okay, I'm clearly on a roll, so why let sanity stop me? Here's my carefully modified GTA: Vice City cover. I removed some logos and replaced that space with more screenshots because seriously, fuck logos.

I didn't know you could link right to uploads. I'm going to see if I can dig up the links for those last two covers.

This is it for the day for me, I think.

Click for full size.



EDIT: And before anyone asks, no, I will never do a San Andreas PC cover. Ever.

[CYRiX]

I got the cover from here:
http://www.marcopolo.me.uk/hl2.html
theres like 20 dvd covers but I put this "offical" template on it.

[The Warlock]

I got the cover from here:
http://www.marcopolo.me.uk/hl2.html
theres like 20 dvd covers but I put this "offical" template on it.

Awesome! Thanks for the link.

[CYRiX]

Heh, deciding to make a full 100% custom Company of Heroes cover:

Click on for hi-res

[The Warlock]

Awesome! Now if only I owned that game...

[CYRiX]

Serious Sam 2:

click for hi-res

[Adm_SkyWalker]

Real nice guys. Much better than the ones I uploaded, course I've never been that good at this. Speaking of which if anybody wants to take the covers I uploaded and rework them so their better go ahead. You have my full permission, hell I'll even give you the raws if you want them.

[The Warlock]

I just threw one up for Mafia. I put a lot of work into this one. I had zero, count 'em, zero scans of the PC version and had to hack up an Xbox cover from CoverGalaxy, and I modified it so much you wouldn't even recognize it anymore. Fine print, Xbox cruft, and URL spam removed, screenshots added, the works.

By the way, Mafia is a great game. Definitely the most underrated game I've played the past few years.

This one's another black ink drainer. But hey, I've started to refill cartridges myself now, and after paying a fair price for ink (that'd be $5 per 100mL bottle, not $20 per 5mL cartridge), I've stopped worrying about it.

Apparently, linking to our uploaded files only works for a day or so, so grab it now. I hope Snowcone gets these on the main site soon.

Without further ado:
http://www.thecoverproject.net/uploads/The%20Warlock.win_pc_mafia.jpg

[Snowcone]

[quote author=The Warlock link=topic=431.msg3396#msg3396 date=1172631937Apparently, linking to our uploaded files only works for a day or so, so grab it now. I hope Snowcone gets these on the main site soon.[/quote]

They should stay accessible. I'm not moving the files and I have 4 new recruits to help me keep up with the flood of covers coming in. Hopefully now we can keep up with the work you guys are doing.