Boxart battle: Air Traffic Chaos U.S. vs. Japan

by JC Fletcher { May 15th 2008 at 4:00PM }

We happened across the American boxart for Air Traffic Chaos, and we couldn't help but notice the speech bubble. "I am an air traffic controller!" the character (who looks a lot like one of those "premium" (pay) emoticons, whose pop-up ads we see occasionally) exclaims, confirming the theory that a game called Air Traffic Chaos is about air traffic control. What we thought at first to be simply a banal explanation of the game is a little more: we remembered that the Japanese name of the same game was Boku wa Kuukou Kanseikan DS, which translates to ... "I Am an Air Traffic Controller DS." We don't understand why the Japanese title had to be plastered across the box like that, but at least it seems slightly less random.

Speaking of that Japanese boxart, it's interesting to see the differences in marketing strategy evident from the contrast between the two. Majesco's box is very kid-friendly and cartoony, suggesting a casual, simplistic experience. But the Japanese box is all business: stock photos of airplanes and air traffic controllers hard at work, with a text bar at the bottom stating "You also become an air traffic controller on the DS!" It looks more like a training game than anything.

Taxi past the post break for larger images of both boxarts, as well as a couple of examples of what other boxes would look like with the Air Traffic Chaos exposition.

Tags: air-traffic-chaos, boxart, boxart-battle, i-am-a-tag, majesco, simulation, sonic-powered

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Deozaan @ May 15th 2008 4:45PM

My only guess is that they were trying to be sensitive to the idea of "Air Traffic Chaos" being associated with the September 11 attack and therefor chose to use a cartoon instead of realistic airplane on the cover.

hvnlysoldr @ May 15th 2008 6:27PM

Burn .er I mean touch the witch!

harvest_god @ May 15th 2008 6:38PM

Um... is the text bubble on Doki Doki Majo Shinpan's cover supposed to come out of the girl's boob...?

harvest_god @ May 15th 2008 6:41PM

Oh, and am I the first one to notice the "i-am-a-tag" tag? XD

Cheese Muffin @ May 15th 2008 9:02PM

Given that they are nippless boobs, I find it appropriate. Too bad we didn't have such accurate methods of finding witches during the Salem witch trials.

"Expose thine boobage!"

Shiny @ May 15th 2008 6:35PM

The Nintendogs one made me laugh. Thank you.

cbylife @ May 15th 2008 6:47PM

lol! "I am a dog!" good stuff!

Sam @ May 15th 2008 10:24PM

when I saw the Japanese box art I was all like "whoa, AWESOMETASTIC!" the American box art just makes me go "Whoa bad marketing!" I'm sure parents will look at the Japanese box art and go "scoff, dip darn terrorists, deys be trainin' on dem wii games! (because they think ever video game is now a wii game, because of popularity) govrn'mnt need to stop this!" mmhmm, sure...