How Great Key Art Can Lead to Doubling Marketing Numbers

In this 2021 GDC talk, Graffiti Games’ Alex Van Lepp shares the effectiveness of good key art and why your studio should allocate resources to ensure your Steam banners are attracting visitors and converting these people into Wishlists and purchases.
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[@juanrodriguez9971]

An example of Key Art that I adored is from The End Is Nigh, which was my first Edmund McMillen game, the art and everything just looked so perfect to me, and I rarely have that feeling with a game cover.

[@alec_almartson]

Great Art can create a new Game Genre in itself, such as: Limbo...
And particularly different Art can make your game unforgettable and unique, by giving it a 'Personality', that's the case of CupHead.
And to mention one of my favorites, a game can become Inmortal with Amazing HD graphics (if the other elements are great too, e.g.: Mechanics, Music, Animation & Cinematics... and specially the Story). That's the case with Half-Life Alyx (great V.R. game), Batman Arkham Knight & it's whole previous series, Call Of Duty MW2 and Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, just to name a few... so yeah, great Visuals really always make a huge difference.

[@zaidlacksalastname4905]

Yep, not always raw graphics. It just needs to be unique and beautiful. Look at hollow knight, Celeste, pizza tower, ori, tunic, etc...
If your game is ugly, people won't buy it (generally speaking). Don't try going for photorealism if you can't nail it. You can be ultrakill or Doom eternal, but don't make a muddy ps3 style game in between.

[@joseluispcr]

yes, the player can't play the game before buyng so what he can see to decide if the game is worth is the art

[@dandi47]

Thank you

[@TheFirstTriplefife]

Dang. I actually played through adventures of chris, the second game showcased here. Didn't expect it to see any attention on GDC.

[@Mel-mu8ox]

NETFLIX changes the clip they show you depending on what attracts you
I wonder if Steam could do this.
For example maybe you could have several key art. such as:
for a simplistic adventure RPG
you want to attract a range of ppl
if you go with simplistic key art you will only attract ppl who enjoy that style.
whereas if Steam were able to take more than one keyart for the firs impression,
you could give them a range:
the simplistic, for ppl who enjoy puzzle and minimum stile
the adventure art with a battle, for ppl who enjoy quick battle sims
some characters posing, for those who enjoy role playing
I often think most key art all looks the same,
mainly because they are all trying to cast too broad a net :/
would be nice if it could show multiple aspects of a game, and match that aspect to the person its aimed at.
kinda like casting multiple nets in the lakes that have the fish you want to catch XD

[@zaidlacksalastname4905]

Would be sick.

[@Ben-bg2lp]

🗝️

[@Deeper489]

TLDW VELOCITY over QUALITY is always the answer when making a game. RESOURCES

[@PuffPuff903]

Why are talks from old years reposted?

[@SoulGuitarMetal]

New talks about concept art are pointless now that you can generate thousands of concept pieces per month for a small subscription.

[@TESkyrimizer]

​@@SoulGuitarMetal ai art is faster and prettier and free-er compared to my own art, since I charge a fee of "food and water" for being alive

[@sealsharp]

Is this actually reposted or just a few years old? Because not everything gets posted on UA-cam and sometimes they release talks here long after they happened.

[@ninjadodovideos]

​@@SoulGuitarMetal talk about clueless... This is more a marketing talk than an art talk, but learning how to actually create art is not "pointless now" as a mass-plagiarism AI toy is no substitute for real art with thought and skill behind it. You already can't use Midjourney or Stable Diffusion art in ANY commercial work since it is derivative material infringing on the copyright of everyone whose work was used to train the AI without permission AND work with no human author cannot be copyrighted, so it's not yours either way *on any level*. Look forward to AI-scraping from copyrighted images being officially banned sooner or later btw... good luck producing anything with zero skills then.

[@nekokna]

@@SoulGuitarMetal yeah but ai art is only small and low res(72 dpi),you cant print banners and things in real life without recreating it :P

[@w0mblemania]

An interesting, often-forgotten aspect of creating products.
I'd say the "REZ PLZ" is an example of what NOT TO DO. The art is muddled, the logo is hard to read, none of it screams "click me".
The art here for Blue Fire is also a bit of a miss. The character design is unappealing, and doesn't look professional. Interestingly, the *current* Steam art for the game is more graphic, has more impact.