General Fuzzy McBitty

Game Packaging

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*Rant*

One of the few things that really bother me about new computer games is the complete lack of packaging for CDs. Even a Jewel Case is a good thing.

When you pay upwards of $60 dollars for something, the box should not just contain some cds in paper envelopes.

What happend to cases and manuals?

Theif 3 really impressed me, because it had a DVD style case.

I know this seems kinda stupid, but I like it when I get stuff like that. Hell, I'm still angry at the way WB packages DVDs. They always use cardboard.

I don't like paying alot of money while the people I'm giving the money to are being cheap bastards.

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Come to Europe - everything comes in DVD cases. I was appalled when I opened my import copies of Runaway and The Longest Journey to find paper sleeves...

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I find wierd that someone from the US is jealous because we have DVD cases instead of boxes, it's usually the other way around....

I prefer DVD cases myself...

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These days, I prefer DVD cases. For whatever reason, over here console games come in DVD cases and PC games still come in boxes. Since manufacturers don't actually put anything in the boxes justifying that much space, I'd much rather just have a nice DVD case with art that's hardly any smaller and which is a million times more robust, and which can be shelved very nicely.

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I like the smell of the boxes, but otherwise DVD cases are probably better... I guess...

In the US, do Console Games come in boxes?

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In the US, do Console Games come in boxes?
For whatever reason, over here console games come in DVD cases and PC games still come in boxes.

There you go Yufster.

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Oh, right. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought he meant they SOMETIMES came in DVD boxes. I don't know. Blah.

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DVD boxes are definitely the best. They're compact, strong, have plenty of room for some lovely artwork, and they just look great.

I'm not really a fan of traditional boxes at all. It's all well and good initially, but then you realise that it's not exactly economical with your space after you've been purchasing them for a few years.

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I prefer DVD cases, but I hate the sucky ones that you practically have to rip the cd/dvd out of. That bothers me. I don't know what PS2 cases are like, but the xbox ones rock and should be made the DVD case standard.

[edit]Oh, yeah, and I also hate all of that impossible to remove tape that they seal DVD cases with.

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The packaging issue's a weird one in this country.

Remember when PC boxes were huge? All the publishers got together and had a long, drawn-out discussion about how to rectify this problem.

The big issues were:

- They wanted to be able to put several boxes on a shelf face forward.

- They needed to be able to easily hold multiple CDs and large manuals.

And lastly...

- Publishers liked the gatefold opening on PC boxes.

So they all decided that DVD cases wouldn't work, and instead they created that funky cardboard dealie because it could do all three things.

Sadly, nobody bothers actually *putting* decent sized manuals in there anymore. The last game I saw to do that was Neverwinter Nights, and that had a nice spiral manual (like Fallout did way back when) and maps and other cool stuff (not surprisingly, the Mac version had only the manual, and it was in black & white).

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For some strange reason the ps2 cases I have are designed in the oddest way. They put a sort of ring around the disk and put little depressions in it that you would supose were for puting your fngers in to take out the disk, BUT NO! They put anouther little ring around it forcing you to praticly hold it upside down so the disk comes out when you press the center. Brillant.

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They put a sort of ring around the disk and put little depressions in it that you would supose were for puting your fngers in to take out the disk, BUT NO! They put anouther little ring around it forcing you to praticly hold it upside down so the disk comes out when you press the center.

Go fucking figure. This has confounded me for years.

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For some strange reason the ps2 cases I have are designed in the oddest way. They put a sort of ring around the disk and put little depressions in it that you would supose were for puting your fngers in to take out the disk, BUT NO! They put anouther little ring around it forcing you to praticly hold it upside down so the disk comes out when you press the center. Brillant.

This has always got to me too...not the fact that I have to flip it upside down to get it out, but that they have those finger grooves! Its maddening!

Its funny, because alot of PS2 games come with manuals way more complete than PC games, even though they have to jam them into that little DVD manual space. That MGS2 manual even had a tutorial comic in it...

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Go fucking figure. This has confounded me for years.
I thought there was some sort of a system at play there that I wasn't getting... I never gave it enough thought, though... Who wudda thunk it was just stupid design...

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^ Yea, but it never pops it up enough. I may have fat fingers, but I can't seem to get it out without tipping it. Stupid design.

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My copy of Grim Fandango was in a DVD case. Eventually I gave up trying to remove the discs. It didn't matter anyway, as I already had the original release. So now I have a totally unspoilt, unused copy of Grim.

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I liked the Grim packaging, the little cardboard splitfold thing is like a Constellation records release (which are the best music packages ever, including crushed pennies)

I'd prefer DVD packages if they weren't made from petroleum plastics, but it's not like we're dumping millions of them, so that's ok. The uniform size is nice, because you can put console, pc and dvd discs side by side. They're about the same size as a good paperback book too, which is good for shelves and the like. Most of my old pc boxes have been sqooshed.

Things seldom stay in their cases in my place though.

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I like DVD boxes. Except that it's so fucking hard to get the discs out. But I like their size, and most big boxes I've thrown away. There are only 3 big game boxes that I've kept for some reason:

Omikron: The Nomad Soul

The Longest Journey

The Last Express

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