Special packages such as a "Collector's Edition" frequently still ship with oversized boxes, or those with a different material, such as a " Steelbook". In the U.S., most PC games continue to ship in plastic DVD cases or cardboard boxes, though the size of such boxes has been standardized to a small form factor.
These boxes are sometimes known as Amaray cases, after a popular manufacturer of them.
Video game display shelf manual#
A thicker variation with space for a thick manual was, however, used for most PlayStation and Dreamcast games.Īround 2000, PC game packaging in Europe began to converge with that of PS2 (and later, Xbox and GameCube) console games, in the keep case format in which to this day the vast majority of games are sold.
Despite the CD jewel case format having been around since the invention of the music CD, very few full-price PC games were released in a jewel case only.
Video game display shelf manuals#
It was during this time that covermounting of cassettes and floppy discs became common.Īs PC games migrated to CDs in jewel cases, the large format box remained, though to reduce printing costs, manuals came on the CD as well as with the CD (inside the front cover), as did many of the copy-protection techniques in the form of SafeDisc and SecuROM. Games re-released as budget games usually came in much smaller boxes-a common format for Amiga budget games was a thin square box roughly 13 cm x 13 cm x 2 cm (roughly 5in x 5in x 1in). Variations on the "big box" format include a box within a sleeve, such as Unreal, and a box with a fold-out front cover, such as Black & White.
Video game display shelf code#
Others came with elaborate copy-protection systems such as Zool's circular code wheel, or even a hardware dongle (although these were generally more common on expensive non-game software). Games such as flight simulators came with extremely large, thick manuals. The greatly increasing box sizes may have been justified in some cases. There was no standard size, but most were around 20 cm x 15 cm x 5 cm (around 8in x 6in x 2in). Possibly in an effort to occupy more shelf space than their rivals, and attract attention with their cover art, games began to be sold in large cardboard boxes. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, computer games became significantly more complex, and the market for them expanded enormously. Treasure Island Dizzy for the Amiga came on a floppy disk in a cassette box). When more advanced machines moved to floppy disks, the cassette boxes stayed in use for a while (e.g. Today, most physical game releases are shipped in ( CD) jewel cases or ( DVD) keep cases, with little differences between them.Īside from the actual game, many items may be included inside, such as an instruction booklet, teasers of upcoming games, subscription offers to magazines, other advertisements, or any hardware that may be needed for any extra features of the game.Įarly machines such as the Commodore 64 were tape-based, and hence had their games distributed on ordinary cassettes. In the past, a number of materials and packaging designs were used, mostly paperboard or plastic. Video game packaging refers to the physical storage of the contents of a PC or console game, both for safekeeping and shop display. Physical storage of the contents of a video game
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