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

HHGuide

[Lord Bitman]

I still have my Hitchhiker's Guide box, complete with destruction orders for my home/Earth, Sub-Atomic Space Fleet, and of course, Pocket Lint.
Sadly, the peril-sensitive sunglasses are long gone. Being the best of all items packed- including the game -they were often shown off, and eventually tore.
I think there was also a "Don't Panic" button that my mom ignorantly tossed away (curses!)

Re:HHGuide

[August_zero]

I remember the packaging of another Infocom Classic "The Lurking Horror"

The game came with a fake student ID, and the best part was a rubber centipede sandwiched between two clear pieces of plastic, when I pulled the game out of the box I remember jumping when I saw it and thinking for a moment that there was a giant insect in the box with my game. (hey I was like 8 years old cut me some slack)

Timely...

[Anm]

On the day I just threw out a pile of game boxes stacked to my waist, I say good riddance. It just marketing trinkets that don't add to the game. Did anyone actually put on the head band pictured every time they decided to play Moebius?

Now don't get me wrong. I like a good manual, and I appreciate a well designed tech-tree poster or map. These things enhance game play by adding what amounts to a second screen for cheap. But most of the things mentioned are so useless they are forgotten about by the second day of game play.

Anm

Re:Timely...

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

Man, I couldn't by any more opposite if I tried.

The 200 page manuals in things like Stunt Island, Red Baron, Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space, Their Finest Hour, or even Master of Magic were one of the *primary* reasons why I'd spend $80 on a game. It always made me feel like I was getting something for my cash. These weren't just game manuals, they were often history lessons, and I learned a ton by reading them.

If I couldn't decide which game to buy, I'd always buy the heavier one. And the side benefit for the company was these things acted as copy protection, even if they weren't specifically meant to be.

Now, the boxes are shrunk, the manuals are tiny (if there at all), and I rarely buy games any more. It's been years now, actually. I didn't change, the games did.

Treasures usually included copy protection

[SchnauzerGuy]

As anyone who was around in the 1980's probably remembers, pirate C=64 games were rampant (maybe even worse than today, especially most copying was done person to person, as opposed to via P2P networks).

In addition to the usual 1541 drive errors, it was common for the copy protection to include secret decoder wheels or references to a specific page in the manual, which provided the code you had to input before running the game. Some manuals even had the code printed such that you needed a red plastic lens to be able to see the code (to prevent photocopying).

Damn those codes were a pain in the butt! And of course, there were cracks and ways to bypass the codes, but the extra packaging, manuals, and maps did provide an incentive to actually buy the game. Today, companies are happy to sell nothing more than a CD-ROM and jewel case - and people are happy to download the game use their own CD-R disc.

Re:Zelda "Golden" Editions

[rhetoric]

My copy of Zelda 2 for NES was may as well have been real gold to me when I got it.. I think it was a nice homage too, but IMHO games have gone the way of boxes... I don't mean to troll, or to stray offtopic, what I'm saying is that this seems to be part of a larger trend or change of style in gaming. simply that, "the times they are a changin..." for better or for worse.. now that's another thread.

Ahah yes

[rhetoric]

I had a copy of "Pirates! Gold" and whenever you happened to encounter another pirate ship you had to look up the name of the pirate which corresponded with whatever flag it showed you in the manual. I loved the game, so I dug up the CD a year or two ago and started playing, only to realize I'd lost the manual...

If you haven't played Pirates! Gold maybe you've seen Pirates! 2, which I have unfortunately not played..(I'm poor and don't get out much). Regardless, it's a GREAT game which has given me countless hours of entertainment, and the packaging and manual were great to boot (woohoo I'm double-on-topic.. pause..). The linked site has the entire thing in PDF, which makes me regret having now lost my Pirates! CD.. as if the irony in the last paragraph wasn't enough. :P

Dr. Who and the mines of terror.

[Mish]

My Commodore 64 was the best games machine I've ever owned, one game where the packaging really stood out (for better and worse) was "Dr. Who and the mines of terror."

This game was great, the packaging featured a picture of the TARDIS on the front with a image of the Doctors brain on the back, inside (along with the 'tape') were numerous documents that really added a lot to the game.

There was however one item that had gave no clue as to why it was included, a credit card sized piece of card in a protective sleeve with three symbols printed on it.

I played through much of the game (about 90% as it turns out) and didn't find a use for the card, as time went on I lost parts of the packaging (including the card).

When I finally went back to the game I found myself stuck at a door, the door required those three symbols from the card to be set correctly to get though, I was screwed. Not till I obtained an "Action Replay Cartridge" and turned "collision detection" off, was I able to get past that damned door. :)

Re:Dr. Who and the mines of terror.

[Mish]

A quick Google search found a page with quite a few of the documents from the packaging, including that damned card.

Infocom games

[Radius9]

I used to love the old Infocom games, but unfortunately, didn't keep most of them around after I stopped playing them. I was wandering around a few years ago and found an independent bookshop going out of business that was selling a bunch of stuff, and lo and behold, I found a copy of Zork Zero, Zork I, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and Starcross, all still sealed in plastic, being sold for $0.50 each! I've still got those, although I did break down at one point and open the Hitchhiker's box.

Sleeves and Smell

[Apreche]

My favorite game packaging has always been NES games. The box of the game was cardboard and discardable. It was just to sell the game anyway, not to store it in. Every game had black plastic sleeve. 1st party games has the nintendo logo on the sleeve. 3rd party did not. Towards the end of the NES they started selling sleeveless games and it really cheezed me off. The SNES had little plastic covers for games, but the N64 didn't. The Gameboy used to have plastic cases you could put games in. I've still got some, they are awesome.

What was even better that catrdiged containers was the smell. Remember the smell when you opened up a brand nes NES game? It was like nothing else. New car smell is pale in comparison to new NES cartridge smell. It is similar, yet much better than the smell of a new pack of baseball cards. Nowadays with games on disc there just isn't that great aroma of catridge manufacturing plant anymore. Oh, how I long for those days.

I'm not the only one who remembers the smell... right?

Jaded memories

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as many of the mentioned games are timeless classics, I think people need to keep an open mind when they think about box art. The 1980's will probably be remembered as the dark ages of video game graphics so people like to think of more fond images, such as the box art of the time. In comparison to the 1990's box art, the 1980's box art was crude and unprofessional looking, not to mention featured more focus.

No only that, but...

[Man In Black]

The poor capabilities of older consoles often made the pack-ins a neccessity. Many Odyssey (Not Odyssey^2, but the original Odyssey) games were essentially glorified board games with (sometimes minor) interaction with the video game... the system often didn't even keep score for you (mostly due to the fact that it had no way of displaying the score, since displaying numbers on screen was too much for the system), so a lot of the games used paper money or score counters. You certainly couldn't make a football game in the early 80's without a playbook, since there was no way to actually display diagrams of the plays themselves on-screen. Getting a complete set of Odyssey items can be difficult, since the games came with so many pieces.

I like the idea of including things like Ultima's cloth maps, but I have to admit that I don't see much point in some of the Hitch Hiker's Guide junk that was included with the game. It's certainly neat to have though.

Re:More recent

[shadowcabbit]

I have both games sitting proudly on my media rack. Of course, none of the goodies are on display-- stuff tends to get lost around me-- but the full inventory is as follows:

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
Demo Disc
Hardbound manual
Cloth map
"Making Of" movie disc
Soundtrack Audio CD

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete
Ghaleon Punching Puppet
Hardbound manual
"Making Of" movie disc
Soundtrack Audio CD
Goldtone replica of Lucia's pendant
Cardboard character standees
Paper map
Spiffy "Omake Box" to hold most of this stuff

Both games went for $60 US, and were generally well-received. No console game that I know of has provided so much non-essential stuff, before or since.