Check out the rather different (understatement) box art choices for respectively the American and English release

http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/ ... two-boxes/

Without resorting to deep socio-cultural studies here (can't be bothered anyway), it's a pretty interesting difference. One is clearly emphasizing the "friendliness" of the game with cartoonish characters and colours, the other is a grizzled, menacing warrior against a black ominous background and a rather aggressive sales pitch. It's all the more bizarre if you know that Settlers is way more lollypop, rainbows & sunshine than dirty war, so the American box is kind of out of place as it is.

Maybe it ties in with what Satis said in the thread re: the Venus of Milo snowwoman...aggression sells in the US. Or at the very least, that is what marketing teams seem to believe.

Apparently it's a common problem: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... IsHardcore
I've never played any settlers games, but in this case, the American box art makes the game look so generic I'll probably don't bother to give it a serious look.

Well, just from my experience of Settlers over the years, the first one definitely gives a more settlers feel. That is to say, the best two settlers games were the first two [Yes Satis, I'm jaded ] and the further on they get more cartoony, until the 5th I believe which was slightly more graphical and slightly more realistic to look at.

That being said, I've not played 6 so I don't know anything about that one.

But the American box are makes it look the same as any other RTS/Life Management type game out there. But it will sell to adolescents from it's box art rather than kids or fans. I guess that's the point, to be fair. I mean Settlers is a great-game-gone-whore, to the point at which I reckon they're just bothered about getting it in to people's homes rather than pleasing the fans. They threw us the wonderful bone of Settlers II, 10th Anniversary edition which simply rebuilt the graphics and gave us the same game (TAKE NOTE SEGA, SONIC 4 LOOKS LIKE SHIT). Perfection, minus a few of the details that made SII a big improvement over SI.

Still, I guess this series like many others has evolved and they'll do what they can to create a new market for it.