Error Spotlight: Power Monger Genesis (redo)
This particular misprint was brought to my attention years ago from a post on digitpress. what exactly is the misprint? The back of the box appears to have the back of F-22 Interceptor instead of the normal back cover. I originally dismissed this as someone pulling my leg because the original pictures had gone missing as the post at the time of me finding it. it took several years for me to finally find out that this actually existed. I was almost floored when I had received it and then i began to scrutinize the cover to find the differences and we will now go into them starting with some of the more prominent ones
starting with the front covers
retail
error
One of the first things you notice is the lack of the bullfrog productions logo and the text relating to bullfrog the real time strategy diamond is also missing and the for 16 bit blurb is also missing here another thing that is noticeable at the top is that there is more of the flames showing at the top near the Electronic arts box on the error one.
Now onto the sides of the boxes
retail
(note color correction applied to the upc box to show the barcode better)
The side of the box features several differences between the two on your standard retail copy the font is a yellow with a blue drop shadow where the error copy has a plain white font and the font it self differs from the retail copy you will also notice the picture after the title differs as well the retail has a picture of the guys face where the error copy has a smaller version of the main image on the front of the box. you will also notice the Sega genesis logo is black on the error copy and white on the retail. now onto the details first off once again the flames are a give away as well the flames on the error copy are zoomed in and don't appear to blend in to the front and back of the cover sheet also the ISBN number differs between the two versions
ISBN 1-55543-731-1 appears on the retail version
ISBN 1-55543-849-0 appears on the error copy
this ISBN number was also used on NHLPA hockey 93
Another difference between the two which may not be apparent is that the error ones use the EA style cases while the retail copies use the standard non ea branded cases
Now onto the back image but let's first compare the images to the back of the F-22 interceptor power monger f22
One of the first things to notice is the differing font colors on the "total air superiority"
There is also 5 screenshots present on the F-22 cover where power monger only has 4. It's also lacking the depiction of the plane in the background the power monger also has an EA air force logo which is not shown on the F-22 interceptor. so it appears that is on the back of the error copy does not come from the F-22 interceptor box.
Where does it come from let's look into that and we will also figure out the front image as well now for the front image of the error copy the image is exactly the same as the one used for the manual on the manual you will notice the same differences and if you turn the manual over you will also see a familiar image, the re arranged screen shots the differing text color and layout differences right down to the code which appears in the bottom corner exactly the same as what appears on the back of this box.
There is one more peculiar thing that the back of the box holds that's the inspected by circle on the error copy which definitely appears to be hand initialed. while the inspected by area is in fact printed onto the initials in fact appear in different places in the area and to be done by hand.
what this appears at least to me to be a preproduction version of the artwork which used assets that were on hand and a sticker was placed on the back for someone to look over and approve, but the sticker was then printed with the artwork and then later hand initialed.
I don't know if these were used at some sort of expo or video game show or if the image was an in house artwork was used by EA to pitch it bullfrog as for graphic layout and somehow got used for an early run. Either way glad this error finally has a spotlight shown on it.