How did/do you guys come up with your cover art? Who do you hire to do that sort of thing lol. curious as to how your method to decide is though
Note that this is all based on my limited experience…
Usually you’ll want to have a graphic/concept artist do these and you’ll want to have the Art Director cover it, if you’ve got one. But basically identify the key component of your game, something that excites the player or really represents the game.
For instance, World of Tanks has a squad of tanks rolling. Representing the game, basic. Skyrim has a mystical rune that looks like a Dragon, simple yet elegant and more in style with the theme and setting of Elder Scrolls.
Many of the shooters out there, to take a more detailed example, have a soldier, holding a gun, dodging action of some sort. Up to the point where it’s become predictable & confusing. You want your art to kinda stick out, catch the eye and preferably not be confused with other games of similar nature. I’ve done a fun little unscientific experiment of removing the titles of both known and unknown shooter cover art and have my friends and modders name the game, obviously without cheating. Majority couldn’t name most of the covers, but that may be a different subject…
I’ve done a few release wallpapers for a mod called Forgotten Hope 2. Set in WWII, has lots of vehicles and battles in different places. What I did was take inspiration of old movie posters. You know, where the face of the actors hover in the sky and there’s stuff happening below. Pretty basic but not really done much in games, some adventure games though…
As a reference:
Here’s the first one I did, with some inspiration from the Indiana Jones covers.
Here’s another one from a more recent Normandy release. Kinda funny to see the contrast of improvements/quality between these two, reflecting back. The first one was done 2007, the later one in 2009… good Times
Anyway, I wanted to have the art it self from in-game to create a relation between the images and what the player sees in game, to give a sense that it’s in the same world as you play in. And I personally reject to fall into this whole action shot of a soldier running through explosions and stuff, mainly because in my honest opinion, I think it’s overdone, plain and boring.
But, yeah… this is enough text for now… 
Never done cover art by myselfe, but mostly concept artist do this job. I personally prefer cover arts with a combination between ingame and painted elements, because a cover should represent the game and not just something that was painted on it after the game was finished.