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Eidos plays no games in making package comps

Colorful game box comps produced digitally help Eidos Interactive sell computer games to retail buyers before boxes are created for production.

Vividly decorated three-dimensional comp boxes for computer games such as these have helped Eidos sway retail buyers to stock th
Vividly decorated three-dimensional comp boxes for computer games such as these have helped Eidos sway retail buyers to stock th

CD-ROM publisher Eidos Interactive is known for its popular computer game titles like Tomb Raider II and Commandos. But Eidos doesn't play games when it comes to marketing its titles to prospective customers. In the last six months, the San Francisco-based firm has armed its sales force with visually stunning package comps created digitally by Preview Graphics (Irving, TX).

"These package comps are shown to potential buyers of our products. They represent the first step in the process of trying to move our product into the market," explains Jo Kathryn Reavis, Eidos' production and purchasing manager.

Using digitally produced graphics for package comps isn't new to Eidos, a division of Eidos plc in Wimbledon, England. "We'd been dealing with another company that digitally produces comps," says Reavis. "We used them to produce several comps for us, but their pricing was very expensive. We received literature from Preview and they followed up at a time when we were prime for the picking," she admits. "We made the switch to Preview, and we now receive higher-quality work for about half the price of what we had been paying" with the previous vendor. Per-comp prices vary, costing between $50 and $100, she notes.

Strong graphics, quick turnaround

Eidos, says Reavis, has no internal graphics department. Instead, it works with local design firms. "We're able to get mock-ups from our designers, but they're never going to look like a product would when it's printed [as do the digitally produced comps]. The designers just don't have the technology or the equipment to be able to do this. This is where Preview offered us something different.

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