do you miss boxes?

Hi
I moved house recently and had to pack up my more than 1000 games and then relocate them. As I went through them to decide which ones I would have on shelves in my much smaller new home, I re-discovered all sorts of gems. There were boxes that are interesting or beautiful in themselves (eg Clandestiny, Fable, the GK1 triangle box, the 7th guest mechanical box), boxes that were different depending on where the game was released or something else entirely (the Lucas Arts/Film games on my shelf stand out), curiosities (Space Quest 1 has a box where the only difference is that a photo of the Sierra Mountain on the back is reversed), boxes of different sizes, and then those with quotes from reviews I had written prior to a commercial release (Dark Fall, A Quiet Weekend in Capri, RHEM 2).
And then there are all those with feelies (Infocom stands out, but more recent games had them included - Last Half of Darkness had plastic spiders in one game)
I have a storage problem I confess, that doesn't arise with my 200 odd Steam games, but I can't but love the boxes.
Am I alone???

Absolutely not !!

Game boxes were not only decorative, they were useful And I am really sad that they have practically petered out

I do have a very nice Dragonsphere one in the shape of a book that I particularly like

I miss boxes. The plastic DVD cases are NOT boxes, no matter what the advertising says. A real box has graphics on all 4 sides, and the promise of something exciting within - not just a silver disc. Never mind the nothing you get with digital.
I remember looking at the shelf at my local EB games. I would eagerly make the trip and almost run to that section. Drooling over the boxes, and making the decision which one would be my next adventure. The tangibility of picking something up and feeling the physicality of it. We are the last generation to do so.

I can remember looking forward to receiving 'Tomb of ZoJir' Last Half of Darkness:

1. A box
2. Quick start guide
3. A Very Important document 'Read First'
4. Another document (old parchment) with strange signs, numbers, letters and rhymes.
5. A postcard with clues to a combination.
6. The all important 'disc' (with all important strange odour of printers ink).
7. Best of all-a small plastic bag with not one but three plastic black widow spiders.


Edit: also a Lost Journal on the Island of the Dead. With a middle section (spider and signs) necessary to complete the game!!

I liked the boxes and I liked the discs but the space problem and the thought of what will happen to them all when I am no longer around to protect them...

Oh yes! I miss the entire experience of going to the game store and drooling over the games in their boxes, then ripping open the box on the way home in the car because I couldn't wait. I miss seeing that present with the unmistakable shape under the Christmas tree. I miss the look of the media room here at home where there were shelves full of my games and those hubby had purchased. It started to look like a game store in there! ha ha

We got rid of most of them a couple of years ago because they wouldn't play on Win10, anyway, and we had run out of room. It was almost like saying goodbye to a good friend. The feeling of that whole era is something you can't explain to youngsters now, who have never stepped inside a store totally devoted to computer gaming and only know "downloading." Aren't you glad we got to go through that whole evolution of games, starting up from scratch, in all its captivating simplicity and then watching it evolve into a magic wonderland of ever-improving graphics, sound and story? I sure feel lucky.

I have many old games in their boxes. I can't bear to part with them. Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex, Thief Gold and Thief 2, Splinter Cell, and on and on. I still have a metal Zorkmid from one of the later Zork games.

Yes I miss game boxes.
One of many things I miss from around the time I first started playing adventure games.

No doubt. On the other hand, I have so many boxed games, so if they hadn't stopped releasing games in boxes, I would have had to move to a bigger apartment.

The boxes were one of the things that made collecting games so compelling. Having hundreds of games stuffed on a hard drive or on a Steam account or whatever will never be the same thing.

You said it, Mikael!

Yes, collecting isn't at all the same now.
Glad I am not alone.
What is your favourite and why??

I liked the extra stuff that often came in the boxes. As favourites, there are so many to choose from, but two that springs to mind are Secrets of the Luxor, with a 142 page manual, and Voodo Kid (which is an extremely underrated game by the way), with a Voodo dictionary, a nice colour manual, and a large poster.

Most definitely. Digital just doesn't have the panache of a beautifully boxed game.

I liked the Safecracker game, that came in a metal box that suggested a Safe. Big combination dial on the cover. A cut above in game packaging at that time.

That "extra stuff" is why I sometimes still buy older "complete in box" versions of older games on eBay, even though I already have them from GOG or other DRM-free shops or from game compilations. It's interesting to read some of the extra "background material" that was included with some older games. Even the advertising pamphlets that game companies used to include are now of historical interest, and featured in certain YouTube "unboxings".

As for favorite boxes, I like the ones with metallic print on the covers, like The Dig.
Open the gatefold cover of The Dig's box and shine a light on it and the surface has a rainbow effect. Also the early versions of Timelapse and The Last Express had embossed covers as well as metallic print. Overall I think The Dig is my favorite because it had striking box art as well as interesting print effects.

I also like the type of boxes where you lift off the cover instead of having to fiddle with tabs on the end of the box, which are prone to ripping. A few examples are the Loom box and the boxes for Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes (Serrated Scalpel), Mission Critical, and Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis. Some Sierra games also had boxes like this, but also had a cardboard sleeve over the box.

I must try that Jenny with the Dig.
The elaborate fold out "mechanical" 11th Hour box is probably my standout. Nice and solid too.
Clandestiny has a 3D stained window kind of effect as its front cover which I have always liked.
I do like getting out the bits and pieces when I play a reworked version of an older game, especially the Lucas Arts ones - the pinwheels alone are fun.

Yes , and no . My most prized box , is Icewind Dale- The Ultimate Collection . I also have the Collector's Edition of Prey , & Dragon Age: Origins

I'm doing a major purge of junk in my house right now. Suffice it to say, NONE of my beautiful boxed games will be making the cut! It was just a great walk down memory lane. I don't even care if I never play the games again - I just thoroughly enjoy going through all of them and making sure everything was accounted for inside the boxes.

You folks have stirred up all kind of memories. I too have at least three larges boxes full games in boxes. I even have all the MYST games in the original boxes. I still remember the day when my long-suffering wife calmly explained that it was OK to own 2000 books and it was OK to have all those boxed games I had acquired. We just didn't have room to store both collections. At the time a bigger house was out of the question, so I still have a bunch of boxed games, but they're somewhere in an attic.

Flotsam you are not alone. I love my old games in the original boxes. I even have the Tomb Raider "rectangular" shaped box from the Tr games. I hate the thought of getting rid of any of them.

One of my favourite boxes is the one for Gabriel Knight 3 - Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. I bought it just because of the box art. Just beautiful.

Riven had interesting box art
***Mobygames picture of Riven box cover***

So did Myst III: Exile (***Amazon picture***) though it didn't look quite as mysterious.

And I always thought ***this cover art*** for Mystery of the Druids was hilarious -- good "B movie" art, not unlike the story in the game itself.

Yes .... I still often have a laugh myself when I look at my "Mystery of the Druids" box !!

Definitely eye catching

I think we all must be a little bit nuts! And I love it!

I do like the oddities - are they "Easter Eggs" or just an error??
This is the Sierra one I mentioned at the start with the reversed photo and I have both so can confirm its true.
reversed normal
Then there is this version of DOTT which is missing the house on the hill. Stood side by side everything else seems in proportion so don't know why it isn't there.
no house house
Interestingly, the triangular box has no house on the front panel, but wraps around seamlessly to portray it on the next side.

Just came across a torch I didn't know was there in Alone on the Dark 4.
If only I could find the Willy Beamish watch.

I only have a select few of all my game boxes on display anyway and I store all my 900+ adventure games on hard drives. So I don't mind that games don't come in boxes anymore. I keep most of my boxed games in storage and can't recall ever feeling the need or desire to look at any of them. I have what I need easily accessible on the hard drives and think that organizing the collection digitally is quite fun too.