A Different Kind of Eye-Candy

(Note: This post is a little late in the coming; when the first part was written, the GamePro article was only a few hours old. Sorry!)

First things first, the patch notes for 2.4 are (finally) up! Read, love, and enjoy; there'll (hopefully) be a post on that soon.

GamePro caused a minor stir in the gaming community recently with their article on bullshots in the video game industry. While the topic (and the term) is by no means new, the side-to-side comparison in the article is rather damning. The article goes on to illustrate examples of altered images in television and advertisements, including the Dove promotional video (the adjustments to Emma Watson in the HP5 promotional poster also comes to mind), but notes that although additional airbrushing is expected in 'traditional' media, edits to game screenshots - already manufactured - are false advertising, pure and simple. Interestingly enough, preoccupied as people seem to be about doctored screenshots (which I've always supposed was true), the complaints have not been extended to misleading advertising as a whole.

I turn your attention to the front and back of the World of Warcraft game box. The front image, which most people will see and recognize, is amazing in its detail -- and therefore, too good to be true. The screenshots on the back validate this assumption, despite also being gorgeous, especially for an MMO. (Even those in-game graphics require a top-end computer to properly handle the intensive demands on a system.)

I'm aware that eye candy is one of the best ways to attract a consumer's attention, but why are our standards so high that even amazing in-game graphics (Oblivion comes to mind) are wholly inadequate to market a game? We all know that they don't look like that, anyway.