How much is artwork important in a game?

I think art is indeed important... but then I'm an artist, so I would.... The art of a game can set the whole tone of the game... a picture speaks a thousand words, it's true. This does not mean that the art has to be complicated, or even very good... just appropriate. The stark simplicity of basic shapes used to represent military units is visually powerful when they're arranged into groups.. (I would use a parallelogram instead of an ellipse to represent a Panzer tank, but that's just me....)

Do you need to have a picture of a dragon on a dragon card? Well no, but then people will envision the dragon they want to. If the dragon in your mind's eye has shiny silver scales, a bright red mane, six claw-tipped and venom-dripping legs, breathes purple gas, flies on wings ragged with arrow-punctures, and lives in the belly of a volcano glowing with magma, and you want the players to KNOW all that, then you've either got to tell them or show them. Which is more difficult? Which is more effective? Will your cards all sort of blend together without distinctive artwork, and become confusing, or worse, boring, or even worse, confusing? (wink) And what if your monster isn't a standard like a "dragon"? What if you made it up? What does the Voracious Ooblion look like? If your descriptions are accurate and communicate what needs to be communicated, then you can do just fine without fancy art...

That being said.....

Does good art make up for bad gameplay? No. Not once. Not ever. Not in the history of gaming. I have played many beautiful games that were clunkers... but I didn't play them more than once.

The game is the cake, the art is the icing.....

~Josh

By the way, you are a fine graphic artist.

wow, yeah definitely can be a box cover! to me your an artist :)

I feel your pain, I realize how you want to cut as much art as possible.

However as you seemed to notice even a symbol or just giving
a unique shape to the token can help major.

in Chinese Chess
for example the pieces are NOT sculpted like European Chess.
Just written on pieces...
The equivalent is like K for King, R for Rook, P for Pawn,
and that's it. If you ever played European Chess with
pieces like this, you do feel down graded, however the
Chinese language, those characters, are symbols.
So to someone that can read it, it's like the picture of a crown
you see for a King for the flat European Chess pieces.
so I recommend to you symbols, even triangle squares and circles.

as for box covers and advertizement, just view all the web sites
visited on here, after you visit 10, your gonna want to just skim
through, and after like another 10, you just want to see pictures!

I see artwork as all symbols, pictures and miniatures, presented in a game. The artwork is a big part of the design (Design is how the artwork together with the text is presented).
Artwork in a game is nearly always present in some way (OK if you only add text to your cards and nothing else there are no artwork, just design).
Not having artwork to your game is like if you go to a movie and there is no film, just someone that describes the movie for you with a monotone voice.

Artwork is something that will bring your game to live. It does not have to be good, just be in style.

Examples:

Kill dr Lucky is a good example where there are a cheep product that want to tell the world that is a cheep product. It works.

In The Hellgame, the designers took a lot of pictures and mixed them together (that’s mainly because of the lack of drawing skill). It is not pretty, but in this game its works.

Munchkin (I know that he is famous) has an art design that works in this case. This art would not work in for example Magic or Runebound.

// Johan

I would say artwork is one of the most important elements in selling a game if someone has not heard of it. First of all, it lends professionalism. If the box looks like my daughter drew the cover (and she's a great artist dammit! - for a 6 year old) then it probably will turn people off right there and they wouldn't give it a second chance. Now, if the cover is a beautifully painted piece with lots of details and looks interesting, I will probably at least flip over the box and look at the back. For a game people know about, art is also very important - it helps people envision the theme. If the cover painting, board, cards, pieces, etc have a nice feel this will add to the enjoyment of the game. IF the cover is a dumb loooking knight with malproportioned limbs holding a sword straight up in the air with a dumb look on his face colored in colored pencils with no background, the game will not only look ridiculous, it will make me not want to play it. Furthermore, if I knew about it and knew it was a solid to good game but the pieces were cardboard paper with the same bad art and not many colors, I would probably never pay for it. If the same game had a knight painted by an artist with a cloudy lightning covered sky and a slain dragon underfoot and a damsel at his side, hell, I want to know more about this game. If I had played the same game and it had solid chunky bits, a beautiful colorful board, I would probably go out and buy it. The most important point is that your art matches the theme of the game. If you make an elegant abstract game with black and white cards with Xs, Os, etc on them, a board with Xs and Os all in black and white only and the box is pure black with a big X and a big O in white in the middle, congratulations, you made a game without needing an artist. But if you have a complex Space Opera game or a trading game set in the Ancient Middle East, you will not be able to get away with bad art.

For the record - you don't have to be Picasso to make good art for a game. Look at Munchkin. It fits the theme with not very special art which actually adds to the silliness and coolness of the game. Look at Puerto Rico. The board is not the best art, none of the pieces have art on them, the box is OK but not great, yet none of it gets in the way of enjoying the game and it adds just enough to the theme.