Arcade ports with different artwork?

[pacgreg]

Centipede is one of my favorite games, even have a full machine in my living room, but why does that one have a badass centipede monster on it and the atari ports have these goofy ball monsters? What other games have drastically different art from their arcade counterparts?

[Nukey Shay]

Um...

Pac-Man

 

Almost makes me wonder what all the yelling was about. It's fairly accurate to what is shown on the box.

[Schizophretard]

Kaboom!/Avalanche

[Lord Helmet]

IIRC nearly all of them have drastically different artwork unless they were done by Coleco (who featured the arcade game itself on the box).

[Vic George 2K3]

Coleco did feature the arcade game machine on the boxes up until around Front Line and Roc 'N Rope. Smurf Rescue was the only non-arcade game that even had its own artwork from Peyo.

 

As for arcade badass Centipede vs. home game goofy Centipede, I can only wonder myself. Maybe it's just to underscore its fantasy setting in a kid-friendly way without seeming too out-of-place gothic.

 

But then, the Atari Force comic that came with the 2600 games did feature a Centipede-like creature in the final issue that was packed with Galaxian, and with much of the realistic fearsomeness as one can get in the 1980s when handling "realistic" sci-fi.

[Syntaxerror999]

Id say its a mix of market data in some cases and not having certain licencing rights in others.