IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Dead Island Logo Changed For North America

Posted March 23, 2011 by M.H. Williams

Due to Entertainment Software Ratings Board restrictions, Deep Silver’s Dead Island will have a slightly different logo for its U.S. release.  A Deep Silver representative has told IGN that the logo on the retail box will change, while the logo in the game itself will remain the same.

The new logo removes the corpse hanging from the palm tree and replaces it with a standard zombie.

The original logo.

The new North American logo.

“The video game industry has set guidelines about the types of content that are appropriate in advertising and marketing materials, which includes game box art. According to those guidelines the depiction in the logo was not compliant,” said the ESRB in a statement.

“We never censor or dictate in any way what type of content can be included within a game. However, a game's marketing materials are seen by an audience that is much broader than that which actually purchases the game itself, so we enforce industry-adopted guidelines as to what is suitable for inclusion in these materials.”

Dead Island has enjoyed an upsurge in attention after releasing an interesting trailer a few weeks back.  The real question with the original artwork is: how do you hang a corpse from a palm tree as shown in the logo?

M.H. Williams has been writing in some form or another for ten years and has been a hardcore gamer since the NES first graced American shores.  You can catch him on Twitter as @AutomaticZen, Google+ as himself, or on his personal Facebook page.