Author Topic: Video game box art scans?  (Read 23500 times)

0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3630
Video game box art scans?
« on: January 27, 2011, 08:36:45 pm »
I don't suppose there's a downloadable archive of video game box art scans out there somewhere on the Internet, is there?

I'm sure there are various game-information sites like GameFAQs, or simply using Google ImageSearch, but I was hoping someone has already collected all of them, neatly named and put into a ZIP or a RAR or a torrent or something...

Offline Peardian

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 627
  • Busy busy
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2011, 12:54:08 am »
There's none that I know of, though that would be pretty handy. Wikipedia could have a good number of their boxes, but I don't think it would cover every game on every system.
MM (10%) - SMA3 (33%) - DNS (0%)

Come check out the Nintendo 64 Mapping Workshop!

Offline Maxim

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 974
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2011, 03:52:21 am »
Some ROM organisers feature screenshots and cover art and they make big torrents with the files in. If you want high-res, though, it's better to go on a case-by-case basis. And of course for your Sega 8-bit needs (I'm sure that's your main priority, right?) there's http://www.smspower.org/Scans/ ... :)

Edit: Also, try http://www.tineye.com to find higher-quality versions of particular scans.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2011, 03:57:48 am by Maxim »

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3630
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2011, 02:06:04 pm »
Sorry, Maxim, I was thinking more along the lines of original NES box art, mostly.  Super NES would be cool, too.  You know I'm a Nintendo guy, so while I would still be intrigued in the Sega Master System artwork, it's not the first thing to come to mind and doesn't have as much nostalgic value.

I'm not looking for the images for any vital purpose at the moment, it's really just for curiosity's sake.  And since one can find almost anything on the Internet if one looks hard enough, I was hoping I could save myself the trouble of hunting down the individual high-res scans if someone's already collected them in one place.  :P

That TinEye site sounds neat, though, I'll have to try it out later.

EDIT: Wow, that TinEye is really neat.  It really can recognize images.  Not just the same image, or resized, but images that are close too, and the latter is actually more impressive...I tried a Super Mario sprite and a Metroid sprite and it pulled up images that include those sprites.  (Someone might have mentioned TinEye to me before, now that I think about it...but is it realtively new?)

The accuracy of today's computers' visual recognition amazes me.  My friend showed me GoogleGoggles on his smartphone, which does searches based on what you take a picture of, and it recognizes logos and the like.  It's almost scary, the implications of computers being able to recognize things that are more than just text strings.  Sure, I know that it's probably just funky math going on, but at the same time, the speed at which it can search over a billion images and pull up relevant results amazes me too.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2011, 02:29:17 pm by JonLeung »

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3630
NES game box scans?
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2015, 08:06:37 am »
Can anyone recommend a good site to find decent-quality box scans?

I'm looking for box scans of all the NES games.  For now, I just need the front.  I might want the back at some point, but even in that case, I would want images with just the front or just the back for each, not both together in a single image.

Google searches bring me to sites with custom boxes, or full (unfolded) box scans, or fronts and backs together, but I would rather not have to manipulate and crop 678 images.  I would also want scans without watermarks.

I suppose I could use Google ImageSearch for each and every one of them, but if anyone knows of a dedicated web site with them (or better yet a ZIP file with all of them already :P), that would be helpful, thanks.

EDIT: Didn't realize I'd already asked a very similar question about this years ago (see above, now that topics are merged), and that this is where Maxim introduced me to TinEye, which I still use regularly.  Funny thing too is that I found the original topic on Google.  But I guess I'm no closer.  I found a thing somewhere that seemed to be a ZIP file with all the NES box art scans, but it required me to download a shady installer thing to get it, and I don't really want to risk that on a work computer...or my own, really.  This quest feels a lot harder than it should, maybe I should just go the Google ImageSearch route...
« Last Edit: March 10, 2015, 10:57:05 am by JonLeung »

Offline avalanch

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 25
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2015, 07:23:29 pm »
Gamefaqs would probably be your best bet or giantbomb.

Click images for the game you want and usually you can find them right there near the top.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/list-a
« Last Edit: August 06, 2015, 07:24:05 pm by avalanch »

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3630
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2015, 08:43:13 pm »
Yes, I already figured out about Giant Bomb.  Not even sure how they got some very clear PNGs of some of those NES games, it's like they somehow got a hold of the original digital files.  Google ImageSearch combined with TinEye helped with the rest, though some games were still hard to find good scans of.

One of the things I managed to accomplish with my finds is here...
« Last Edit: August 19, 2015, 08:47:03 pm by JonLeung »

Offline Revned

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1094
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2015, 06:31:53 pm »
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that MobyGames finally removed the watermarks from all their images this May. Now it's actually a great resource for box art.

Offline JonLeung

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3630
Re: Video game box art scans?
« Reply #8 on: August 21, 2015, 03:56:56 pm »
That's good.  It never really made sense to me why there should be a watermark on someone else's work that is merely scanned in.