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Okay, that was confusing to me. At first I thought you meant the computer itself. Then you mentioned sound and I thought for sure that was in reference to the sound card. But now I understand (I hope!) that you mean the packaging for computer games.

Might and Magic VI had other things inside, like a large cloth map that had to be folded to fit. And way beck when, games had printed manuals (on paper!) that introduced the world of the game, often in a way that implied it really does exist, somewhere.

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Now that I look at it again, the topic title makes perfect sense. It's just that it has been so long since I've seen computer games in boxes that I forgot the possibility and thought about how computers used to look like large boxes themselves. Well, maybe they still do. But Apple computers don't nowadays.

In my experience, it was because games came with printed manuals. However, in Brazil you can also (still!) find gaming magazines that come with a CD or two to install a game, so those don't come in boxes because a part of the magazine is dedicated to being a manual for the game. I don't know about the quality of those magazines nowadays, but back in my childhood days they were really cool! They had articles, reviews and ads for games. I actually still have a couple of them I think.

Well, if I'm remembering correctly Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender had... 19?? disks (3 1/2 inch). Along with a printed manual. But even back in the 80's I've still got the original Police Quest games and they mostly came with anywhere from 3-7 disks (5 1/2 inch) if I'm remembering right. And printed manuals.

Manuals are awesome. Whenever I bought a new game, the first thing I ever did when I got it home and opened the box was.... install it??? NOOOOO. Take the manual out, close the box back up.. and spend the next day or two (depending on the manual) reading it cover to cover. A well done manual not only taught you how to play (in more detail than any "tutorial" will ever be able to) but it also got you "ready" to play. By than I mean you were chomping at the bit to play. One of those time I remember more than any was after reading the Fallout manual (Fallout 1.. before they were numbered). Man just after reading the manual and before even loading the game I knew I had the best damned game I had ever played right there. And I wasn't wrong either.

Also they often came with maps (some cloth even), and they usually always had a book of other games sold by the publisher which is where I personally learned mostly about other games available. Oh, and the boxes look so cool on a row of shelves side by side. Better than any damned book library ever looked.

Bring back the boxes!!!! (or at least the damned manuals please).

I am still sad about losing my Ultima VII cloth map :(

The same reason huge billboards exist. Visibility. It's easier to have your product noticed, when it stands out from the crowd.

Near me there's a store, that still has a retail games sections, and I find it kind of difficult browsing through all the titles when all are in identical looking cases. But Blizzard still has huge boxes for world of warcraft and slightly bigger for the starcraft 2 battle chest, and the older individual expansions. Vermintide also has a big box. And they immediately stand out.

^This. Also, esp in 'Murica some games (like DoTT) had boxes in special shapes (while we had those boring Euro-boxes, which were easier to stack/pack/handle for the retailers and wholesale.

Also big, lavish boxes hold a certain collector's value (esp. since only the first editions had them), which prompted you to buy full price shortly after release before they were sold out. Condolences... I still have my Ultima V cloth map somewhere...

There where a lot of stuff inside those boxes.
Ok not every game obviously but games from like the
Jane's Combat Simulation had a Manual with ~400 pages
and weighted 1kg.

Years ago i got rid of most of these boxes but the ones i could
not are still in good shape for instance the Morrowing Collectors Edition.
They shall burry me with it...

Hey, you should see my "3 days of the condor" dvd box. Most beautiful huge carboard box of air (with a disk slapped against one of the inner sides). Note to burglars : I now use it to store my cash. But I'm still baffled by this design choice.

And no, it didn't come with a manual.

Ah, thats simple. Back in the day, us kids spent all our parents money on computers and computer games, so effectively we had to live in houses made of the boxes of said games.

How I miss those huge boxes. Just thinking about the thick instruction manuals sends a pleasant tingle to my spine.

Thanks for thomq for the clarification. I also thought this was some kind of rant how big the old desktop PC cases were, and I was like "Were they (bigger than nowadays)? Umm, ok, if you say so, maybe nowadays there are less card slots needed inside, mostly just for the graphics card...".

Anyway, GAME BOXES, yes. I thought they were ridiculously huge already back then. Two of the worst offenders I personally recall were (and yes I have mentioned these earlier several times):

Leisure Suit Larry 5: The cardboard box was bigger and thicker than most other PC games of the time, but there were just some floppies and some thin manual inside, IIRC. Lots of wasted space.

Journeyman Project Trilogy: My god! It was a huge cardboard box that you couldn't hold in one hand, you could probably fit a newborn baby inside. Yet, the CDs themselves were only in some thin and flimsy cardboard envelope or such, and if there was a manual, it wasn't a big one either.

I guess the only reason for such gigantic boxes containing little was to get exposure on store shelves. I really preferred the later PS2-like DVD-boxes that became common also with PC retail games, they were much smaller and of the same size all the time (easier to stack them).


I originally coped with the big game boxes by buying one or two extra multi-level shelves for them from IKEA, and keeping them there. Even that was not enough in the end, so I started keeping the least used ones in cupboards which were really meant for clothes.

Later when I moved out of the apartment, I didn't want to even think of moving all those game boxes too... so instead I got rid of almost all the game boxes, keeping the game media (CDs etc.) and manuals only in small plastic bags. I only kept a couple of the boxes, the fanciest ones that were more like works of art.

I miss those days.