10 Video Game Cover Mistakes You Won't Believe

A video game's box art is the front line of its marketing. Ads can be missed or ignored, but anyone browsing the shelf at their local game store will inevitably end up seeing your game's cover.

Ads can also be - and often are - outsourced. Box art, however, is usually designed in-house. A good cover, along with box quotes and screenshots, is the most direct way you can represent your game to your potential audience.

To put it another way: despite common wisdom, most people do judge a book by its cover.

So it's important that your game's box have eye-catching art, direct messaging, and - at the very least - every word spelled correctly.

It's a lengthy process to meet such a low bar, which is precisely what makes these ten cover art mistakes all the more baffling.

Okami is famous for two things. The first is being one of the most beautiful, charming, undeniably unique video games ever made. The second is this infamous mistake that appears on the cover of the game's Nintendo Wii version.

At first glance, it looks exactly like the original, Playstation 2 cover, but with a different background. However, a closer glance reveals that the Wii cover is pulled from an IGN article, complete with IGN's watermark.

This raises two big questions: Why? How?

For one, the game was ported by Ready At Dawn instead of original developer Clover. But that still doesn't explain why it was somehow easier for them to rip an IGN image. The publisher was still Capcom. Presumably, they would have an extensive stock of official Okami art available to them.

Regardless of reason, it's a minor but especially embarrasing gaffe for a game reknowned for its unique visuals.