Cover Analysis #1 - Portal

My first box art analysis will be for the first person puzzle game, Portal. This cover is for the original game, which was primarily released in a box set along with two other valve games, Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2. This game was released in 2007 on the PC platform, nowadays; it is also available for purchase on Steam.
The background of the front of the box is very simple; it features a grey, slightly highlighted background, with some very faint chamber warning signs from within the game.  A simple background like this is used so that the audience’s eye is not drawn from the main logo and image. The Portal logo, the O being a blue portal itself (Iconography), is featured near the bottom of the box. Underneath this is a variety of logos, including the ESRB ratings logo that I have previously discussed. 

The ‘PC gamer editors choice’ logo is also shown, this is done to give the game more status, making people want to pick up and play it because it seems important and must be good to get a status such as that. The ‘Game developers choice awards’ logo is also displayed for the same reason as this. Portal won this award in 2008, a year after release. It was not originally given a single release this was because it was released within ‘The Orange box’ as the developers did not count on it being successful. Since then, it has won many awards and produced a sequel that is proving equally as successful. Including these logos connotates to the audience that this game is going to be a worthwhile purchase.

The Valve logo, in the right hand corner, is recognizable and acts iconography to previous players of their games. Valve is the name of the developer and publisher of Portal and is one of the companies I have researched before.

From the packaging, it is not clear what target audience the game is aimed at, the ESRB is the only clue and that is only a guideline. The ESRB rating notes that the game is suitable for teenagers, but it has many older gamers and was considered a fad at one point.

The PC CD logo, which is incredibly well recognized is shown to denotate to players what gaming platform, this game has been produced for.

Portal, as a game goes against many conventions discussed by theorists. Cumberbatch and Negrine (1992), Barnes (1992) and Longmore (1982) stated that disabled people are either screened out or in limited roles.
The representation of Chell, the character you play as during this game goes against this theory, with her being mute, a form of disability.
Mulveys theory is another theory that cannot be applied to this game, Mulvey introduced the concept of the male gaze, a theory in which, females are portrayed as objects of desire for heterosexual males in the audience. Chell, although being female, is not portrayed in this way. She is given scruffy, tied up black hair and is fully covered up by an orange jumpsuit. She is clearly not put into the game as an object of desire.

Chell’s non sexualisation has been praised by many, in particular, GamesRadar who commented "the hero of Portal just happens to be a normal-looking and normal-dressing woman, like 50% of the world's population", naming her ‘one of those mediocre game babes’.

The spine of the package also features the Portal logo, this is done for display in shops, this is done so the game can easily be noticed and picked out. The companion cube is shown above the Valve logo. This cube also acts as iconography, as it is a widely recognized element of the game, called upon when the game was going through a fad stage.

The back of the box art, once again features the companion cube. It also features a variety of screenshots from the game, making sure to show some of the main dynamics of the game, for example, traveling through space using a portal. Underneath each of these screenshots, 3 in total, there is a brief summery under each of these, explaining elements of the game play and using language to excite the reader and make them want to play.

The main screenshot on the page shows you looking down through a blue portal at some of the test chambers you will face within the game. This screenshot serves as an introduction to the Turrets, military androids within the game that you will need to solve puzzles to get around. It also shows the red Aperture science button, another key part of the game play within Portal.
The language uses a formal mode of address, simply explaining what the game is about whilst trying to draw potential players in.

Text is placed on the top left, which reads ‘Find out why the critics are raving’, this sentence both serves as an invitation to players to play the game, but also shows off the large amount of brilliant reviews the game has gained from critics.

The bottom section of the back of the box set is dedicated to the iconography of the companies and game engines that Portal runs on, along with copyright information that is made small due to its irrelevance to the games target audience. The Valve logo is once again shown here, along with the logo for Source (the engine the game runs on) and Nvidia, the graphics processor. The ESRB logo is also shown for a second time, this time noting why it has been given that rating.

Finally, the barcode is shown at the top of the box set, something that isn’t usually done for PC disks, but fits well where it has been placed.

I will be looking at two more game covers to, like with my poster deconstructions, get a better feel of the common conventions used within this type of packaging.