CDs, Boxes, Manuals & More - Digital distribution's impact on physical copies

I like boxed copies. If I am doing a day one purchase then I exclusively buy physical copies. Theres something about holding a box in your hand and digging your fingernail into the tape and cutting it open. Then you stick your finger into the cardboard skeleton and pull out the inside but not before placing the opening to your nose and giving yourself a sniff of the new game smell. After you flip over the contents inside on the carpet and see a paper sleeve and a piece of paper, you remember why no one buy physical copies anymore.

What happened? I remember in the past you would get a huge box and inside you get a CD case with a mini manual and the game CD. Then you get a thick book of a manual, some of the even older ones are in leather and had a nice smooth touch and smell to it. There would also be non important things included like art, catalogs, and other useless stuff. I'm not old enough to know about the floppy disk games but aren't those in big huge thick plastic cases with a bunch of stuff? Even those are better than today's boxes. Nowadays you're lucky to even get a flippy cover on your box. Inside is a paper slip with your DVD shivering inside from exposure. A piece of paper called a manual and a catalog thats at least 10x bigger than the manual. Thats fucking it? You can totally see the effort they took.

Nowadays everyone is using digital distribution. Its fast, its easy, and you will never have the risk of losing your shit. Why drive down to your local store wait in line and buy a physical copy. Then you'd have to pull the DVD out and install. Digital distribution you can predownload it before the day it is released and you just wait until the clock hits midnight and start playing. I can see why its so popular. But for people like me who likes the feel and the looks of the boxes, we're willing to put up with having to drive down to the store. But with the game companies desperately trying to get as much money as they can, the boxes end up suffering.

I have never been a fan of collector editions. I don't know why but they just never really appealed to me. I can see why people would want them. Theres a lot of stuff in them that are pretty cool. Walking out the store while everyone is holding a tiny box and you are carrying a huge beast of a box makes you feel like either a huge dork or the king of nerds. But unfortunately, what is found inside the box are usually not worth the big price increase. Some exceptions like Witcher 2 and a few others give a ton of shit and their collector edition boxes are twice as big as the next. The rest like all the other lazy companies give a slightly bigger box with exclusive ingame items! Why the fuck do I want these retarded ingame items when they can either be modded in if its single player or in an online game be completely useless because they are nothing but vanity items.

Another thing about ingame items are preorder bonuses. Seems like every company is adapting that model. Preorder and you can get in our exclusive beta! You'll get garbage that no one gives a shit about! Honestly, the reason 90% of the people preorder is because of early beta access. Why? Because betas are nothing more than a marketing tool now. I mentioned it in my beta post before, betas are now used as demos and way to get preorders. They don't fix shit, they don't test shit, and theres no stress testing. Half the time betas keep what progress you did giving people who preorder a huge advantage. One game seems to take this to the next level. Tera a new action MMO coming out has preorders giving beta access. A beta that is 15 days long over a series of 6 weekends. Each weekend is 60 hour long of beta and after every weekend all progress is wiped and a new set of 1000 people are allowed in. What could they possibly test in that limited amount of time? Nothing. Its used for nothing but hype and to suck in preorders.

To make things worse. they even add a 10 dollar "mini preorder" which gives you beta access but not the game itself. Its deducted once you purchase the full game. Those who preorder get to get in all betas and allow you to keep all progress during the beta. And at the very end there is a 5 day head start where people who preorder can play. Is this what gaming has been reduced to? What happened to the boxes? What happened to the cool shit. Now its just ingame items and beta access. Even Blizzard is doing it. Buy 12 months of WoW subscription and get into Diablo 3 beta!

Then theres the digital collector editions. Those are laughable. You get more exclusive ingame items and digital artbooks and digital novels. Yes, those are very nice indeed. So nice I'm going to sit here and laugh at everyone who bought them.

Consoles on the other hand, haven't changed too much. In fact I think they gotten better. Before you get a box with a cartridge inside with a manual, then it changed to a tiny plastic CD case after the introduction of CD games, but now its a big plastic case with a bigger manual and cover art. Size isn't everything though, but at least they feel superior to the lame PS2 plastic cases. I like to admire cover art. Its getting rarer these days for nice cover art. Most games are just a big lameass title front and center with a bland single color background. Then there are those that are beautifully and artistically created. And of course there are the retarded ones that gives you second hand embarrassment just being in the vicinity of. Scariest part of that is where is says partial nudity. It could be anything from prepubescent girls naked or a hairy ogre ass.

I don't hate digital distribution, in fact I find it very convenient. It fits perfectly with today's fast paced world. I'm afraid after a few more years, these video game boxes might disappear completely. Never again will we be able to breathe in that new game smell, run your fingers through the pages of the manuals, or admire the visual art on the cover. Consoles might live on but digital distribution might be winning the fight for PCs.