PC Gaming - a rant on cases

benstylus · Post by **benstylus** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:29 pm

If I had to pick the one thing that disappoints me about PC gaming, it's playing a truly bad game like ValuSoft's Initial D.

However, when I am given the freedom to pick TWO things that bother me, the second one would be that nobody seems to give you a case for the CD (or cds) anymore. It used to be a common courtesy - it made the games easy to keep on a CD rack and easy to find. All of my older PC games have cases - Myst, 7th Guest, Dino Crisis 2, Word Munchers, Plane Crazy, you name it.

Granted, I know some games are quite large, but that's no excuse. There are standard double-width cd cases that can hold up to 6 CDs with no problem. 99% of games come on fewer than 6 CDs, and with DVD versions of many popular games available, that makes it even easier.

And what's the cost of these cases? Well if you order them directly from the manufacturer in quantities suitable for a nationally distributed game, they are dirt cheap. If you order them on a site like the one I linked above, they're still dirt cheap. For the 6 disc cases, they're 35 cents each if you buy 1000 - and most publishers plan to sell more than 1000 copies. Single disc cases can be had for 14 cents each. Then of course, there's the printed inserts on the front and back which would probably run less than 50 cents each when done in bulk.

I'm sorry, but when games cost $40-$50 (or more), I expect the publisher to supply a nice case. I don't want 50 white paper sleeves sitting around and having to look through them just to find the game I want to play.

Not one of my three most recent PC game purchase (Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich, Painkiller Gold, and Silent Hill 3) had a case. Everything was paper sleeve. Painkiller had a cardboard sleeve to go around the paper sleeves for its discs, but it still was lacking.

Is anyone else upset over this?

The cover project I started many months ago (to convert Saturn and DVD size cases to CD size) had temporarily been put on hold. Now I think I'll start it back up again, and with a wider scope.

TalkingOctopus · Post by **TalkingOctopus** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:10 pm

It annoys me too. I wish they came on DVDs instead of multiple CDs. 1 case and 1 DVD. I have the regular edition of painkiller and it has a case. I wonder why it got cut from the gold version.

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 2:39 pm

It's annoying, but I put all my game CD's in a CD wallet.

You could just buy some jewel cases from Wal-Mart and put the name of the game on the insert card, or if the game's manual fits, stick that in there.

But yeah, PC games used to have these nicely decorated jewel cases with full color manuals, and now all we get are these cheap-ass sleeves and black-and-white color manuals. Yuck!!

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 2:45 pm

Remember when PC games came in Cheerios sized boxes?

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 3:38 pm

And Amiga games. Fuck, those were the days.

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 3:47 pm

Valgar wrote:Remember when PC games came in Cheerios sized boxes?

I actually like the smaller boxes myself.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:27 am

I'd rather see the PC games all come in PS2 style DVD cases instead of cardboard boxes. I don't miss the old "Cheerios" boxes. SOA's large Sega CD/Saturn cases were a pain to be honest- thank goodness they quit using those when Dreamcast hit.

I can live with B&W manuals if the companies need to get cheapass. The CD cases are more important IMO.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:14 pm

What's great about PC games is that if you wait long enough, eventually you'll find the game you want bundled with all its expansions for ten bucks.