On Early Game Packaging Treasures

Thanks to Armchair Arcade for its article discussing the wonders of classic game boxes, as the author reminisces about the "lost art of innovative game packaging from the early to mid-1980's, when there seemed to be an abundance of real thought and care behind the customer's experience beyond the software itself." He points out: "Hardcore gamers appreciate hardcore packaging, with unusual boxes and a handful of feelies... Today, hardcore packaging - if available at all - has a hardcore price. There are still tens of thousands of hardcore gamers like in the past, it's just more profitable to go after the hundreds of thousands of mainstream consumers instead." The article ends with a series of gallery pages, including some of the classic boxes from "the company with arguably the greatest overall packaging", Infocom.

Comments

Zelda "Golden" Editions

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, you can't forget the Legend of Zelda's Golden Cart, which I still have around here somewhere... It was a nice homage to the past that Nintendo mad the Windwaker disc gold.

Awww, shame!

[dagbrown]

They didn't mention that cool tin can that the Linux version of Quake 3 came in! That was the best.

Re:HHGuide

[pezpunk]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy best packaging ever:

- a little baggie, labeled "Microscopic Space Fleet."

- some pocket fluff

- peril-sensitive sunglasses. in the book, they would cloud over at the first hint of danger ... my pair must have been expecially neurotic, they were always pitch black. in fact if i didn't know better i'd suspect they were simply cut out of a sheet of construction paper.

- a friendly red pin, emblazoned with the motto "don't panic!" in yellow letters. (currently affixed to my leather biker jacket)

- Demolition orders for my home

- Demolition orders for my planet

- No tea!