I’d be interested to know what folks’ standout favorites are, whether or not those games were among our most successful or not.
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I definitely have a tendency to skip over games with covers that don’t have art I like, but I don’t think the gender of the cover characters has ever impacted my buying decisions–until I read the work itself, I’m mostly prone to assuming that anyone on the cover is an NPC, or maybe just a figure representative of the world (insofar as I’m aware, the Deathless: City’s Thirst MC can’t become a skeleton, and there isn’t a skeleton character described like that, so she’s mostly just representing the game as a whole rather than being a visual of anything in it specifically). Not sure how supported that assumption is, though–I’d be interested in the ratio of cover art featuring hypothetical main characters to cover art that doesn’t (only wrt covers that show people, I mean–unless there’s a hidden “sentient sheriff’s badge” playroute I missed, covers like Tin Star’s could be left out)
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Welcome to morey town and choice of rebels are my two favs. I just like the realistic style they have to them.
Specifically with Undercover Agent, what confused me was not really the image, but the fact that the email didn’t include the standard “Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay or straight.” At the same time, the email did mention finding love with “your enemy’s son”. I’m not surprised somebody would assume based on this that the player character is a heterosexual woman.
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Yes and no.
When I look at the CoG art, I see different things. First I see it has “cover art” of a book or a video-game packaging. I’ve always enjoyed art (paintings, drawings, splash-screens, illustrations, maps, etc) and so I often appreciate it for what it is.
The second thing I see is what that artwork is conveying to me (if anything) when I go to look at the demo. Sometimes I feel the art is connected to the story but other times I feel it is disconnected. An example is Vampires 2 Memphis vs Vampires 1 by Jason. The artwork for the first struck me as both beautiful and fitting for the story. The second one, I felt a disconnect. I got that it was illustrating a specific NPC but the character was not represented by the art in my mind.
I have to disagree with @Eric_Moser in saying showing characters is always more eye-catching. It depends on the story-game and its style. The tin star graphic of Tin Star is perfect for a western. The art showing a shootout for Showdown at Willow Creek was also appropriate. Moreytown is an example where showing characters really paid off because it helped introduce the storyverse.
Psy High’s “yearbook” theme help me connect to the story better and while it shows characters in the story, its presentation did more than that.
Lucid has always connected his art to his themes. Life of a Mobster showing a gun, money and blood reinforces what the story is about, Daria 1 does the same by showing a typical RPG scene that later you can connect to a specific scene if you read the story.
I thought @Gower’s latest art was both story-fitting and setting appropriate, his artist nailed many different aspects of his game. Hollywood Visionary’s artwork was very fitting as well, doing the same as Gower’s did but without showcasing NPC’s.
I really don’t look at the art as criteria for HG titles - art is expensive and so I can’t fault people just starting there whatever they do come up with. I think unified art benefits series like CCH and the Samurai books and so, as they experience success I’d expect more investment into the art but art related to one-off HG titles are nothing but a bonus.
I do think that if you want to take the next step, more refined art will need to be commissioned or bought. I still remember paperback book art from decades ago … and that should be the aim here too. You want people to remember the connections to their memories of a good story.
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I have to agree with this. I know the game was meant to be genderless but while reading it I was not really connecting either way. So, in the end, the advertising blurb influenced how I saw the game.
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Hmm. I’ll have to look into the description draft we have and see that it’s updated (cc: @RETowers)
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Whilst it doesn’t usually bother me since I know how most COG titles work, I think having both a male and female character in art works well, since it could show the different sorts of characters one could be.
Some of the smartest people I know disagree with me.* 
(*on occasion)
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Simply doesn’t effect my purchase decisions, but i do use the images as wallpapers on my Chromebook, tablet, and phone.
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I’m more likely to buy a game with women on the cover art over men or no people at all. Whether there’s a deeper meaning behind that I don’t know.
While one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, if that were what really happened we’d all be buying black slabs 
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The splash picture only gets my attention(although I must confess female on the splash page gets my attention quicker), for me, I have to play the demo. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the text inside is what makes it worth the price of admission.
The only thing that makes say no to a purchase is an gender ambiguous MC (there is no gender choice for the player as to what they want to play as female/male/NB) I know I am getting slightly off topic…Like CongressWolf great story premise, good writing, falls apart for with me with MC interactions (also the MC never feels like ‘my’ character that does not fit quite into the story as a fleshed out characters like the NPCs whom are defined.
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The gender of the character in the artwork doesn’t impact my choice at all, but the quality of the art(beauty is in the eye of the beholder though) can sway me. However, what moves me most to purchase is reviews and the demos.
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A great cover would caught my eye but it isn’t the major factor when I purchase the full game.
Its usually the summary and demo that help me sway my buying decisions. I sometimes let the reviews help me decide though but I don’t want to use the reviews as my major buying factor since different people have varying degree of criteria that would be different from mine.
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Pendragon
Tin Star
Choice of Robot
Is my Top three.
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Cover art, when it depicts a single gender, can influence (but isn’t the final factor) whether I buy or not. I usually assume that if there is not equal representation on the cover art, that the game is skewed to be for the gender on the cover. For example, if it’s a male on the cover, I figure that the story is catered more for men than women. That’s just my experience with buying games in general. At that point, if the synopsis is good and the demo is good, then I’ll get it.
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For me, my standouts are:
COG games: Slammed, Versus(series), Metahuman Inc.(Anything that brings cyberpunk/shadowrun dystopia to life gets my vote)
HG: Tin Star(best game ever published here), Inifity series(wasn’t bothered by gender lock but I am a male), and CCH.
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I never thought that the cover art for CoG/HG is referring to my Main Character , because i know i am reading an Interactive Fiction/novel , however if i am reading a non-interactive novel… i will imagine the cover art character(s) may be the protagonist(s)… that’s how my sub-conscious work…
In fact when i look at the female figures of Superlatives and Heart Of House …my instinct was telling me that these are the characters i will meet in the story (not the characters i am going to role-play), i still thought the female figure of superlatives is either Lady Hallow or my sister while the Lady of Heart of House is Oriana… and the 2 persons in slammed are my competitors (zeus and verma ? )
However, when i read the demo version of Undercover Agent, it didn’t require us to define our gender and in one interaction, the “flirt” option is to a guy… hence even i was a little bit confuse here , was it the game require us to define our gender ourselves or play as ourselves ?
The covers have been pretty strong recently. Superlatives and Heart of the House both looked fantastic, as did Tally Ho (a case of either gender MCs on the cover, btw, not just male). I like Empyrean and the Deathless covers, and Sea Eternal is one of my faves–really good design.
Jumping back a bit further: Wise Use of Time, Willow Creek, and the original Vampire are all standouts to me.
My favourites of the covers? I’m not super good at picking favourites, I like different things for different reasons…but if I were going to pick out of a hat of favourite covers, maybe Ratings War, Sea Eternal, and Last Monster Master.
Overall, I tend to prefer ones that aren’t too busy and have a relatively small number of major elements (LMM being an exception here cos, quirky cartoon monsters and soft pastel colours).
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