Box art / Game packaging

[brothertuc]

Watching a youtube video on the subject, I couldn't help wondering what kinda opinions other people had.
I guess we all would like to have our games in the original packaging, but do you have games that are CD/cartridge only, or do they make you cringe?
Do you have game cases that you can't stand looking at, because of a tear or so on?

Have you ever bought a game, just for the cover art? Is it important to you?

That was a lot of questions, I know. But it kinda made me intrigued.

Fx, I'm European, and I can't imagine the PS1 case looking different xD
But they would be easier to fit on a shelf if they looked like the US ones...

[vivigamer]

PS1 cases are probably one of the more unique cases in regards to different packaging. I love the European designs - Especially with the Embossed PLAYSTATION text on the disc tray protion  Looking at the USA/Japan jewel cases just seem so stanard to me in comparison - Probably becasue they're also used on any music cd.

One thing that annoys about recent packaging is the inlays - slip of print paper that has the game cover on them. recent they have become so flimsy that I can see depressed imprints on the top and bottom of the front where the gap for the manual clips are inside the case. Also, especially with later Xbox One/SX cases, I find the middle part of the disc holder really digs into the back of the case damaging the backcover - Which is weak due to lesser gram quality paper...

Don't get me even started on the poorer quality of modern cases which encourages loose discs in sealed games... happens far too often these days

[brothertuc]

I love the US design of the PS2 games though... They look like the PS3 cases, with colours and all on the spine.
The PAL version is just a white spine with black text.

And yeah, loose discs makes me quiver.

[Warmsignal]

Because everyone back in the day collectively decided that it would be in their best interest to throw out all cardboard boxes for their games, I've come to accept that most 16-bit and older game cartridges don't have a box, so I feel okay to collect them as just the cart alone. If I find a boxed one then yay, and if I don't that's fine too. However, with the advent of disc-based games there was no excuse. CD binders are lazy and scratch up discs, I won't collect any Saturn/PS1 or beyond without the case and I won't collect any small SD card games without the case either.

As for condition, sometimes I get frustratingly picky. I want as close to mint as I can get, especially on my modern games which are quite delicate, and easily marred. So yeah a gouge, tear, wrinkle, etc, does frustrate me to look at.

I don't buy games for the cover art alone, but they're instrumental in grabbing my attention initially, to look into a new game.

[sworddude]

Cover art can fool a person. I've skipped allot of games in my earlier collecting years because of it. However fortunately allot of the good games have cool box art aswell. so when I did find them for cheap I did pick em up.

For me in my beginning sega collecting years aside from sonic didn't know allot about said console. It was quite an unknown library for me.

I fondly remember titles for fleamarket prices such as phelios truxton second samurai arrow flash burning force etc etc, they grabbed my interest because of their cool cover art so I picked em up. was especially pleasantly suprised to rediscover a game that i played in my childhood wich was 2nd samurai. forgot it's name but it was pretty epic to find that title once again, blast from the past.

nowadays cover art has no influence in me getting a game or not. good games can have ugly/boring cover art aswell. plus nowadays it's so easy to look up content of said games it's just a different era these days. you have allot more than just the back of the box. still even way back you'd have decent content to look stuff up online but it's less normalized plus laziness that has stopped me from doing so way back.

[Bluemoon]

My vauge unwritten rule is no loose discs, however loose cartridges have never bothered me, maybe it's because a loose disc feels so fragile on it's own. also I do not have the money to exclusively collect boxed nes/snes games, if anything i end up keeping those games sperate from the box so i can try and preserve the cardboard

[djgdave]

I have some loose carts and discs laying around but I don't count them to my collection as I'm only interested in CIBs. Having loose carts lined up on the shelf just feels incomplete, but that's just me.

[jipsy]

Box art is a dying art form, you can see it's the same way with movie posters. But in the age of hyperrealistic 3D modeling I guess there's not a reason to hirer an artist to design something cool most of the time.

[wizgecko]

I´ll be honest, many times the boxart is a factor which determines whether I get a game physically or digitally, if a boxart is boring or lame I might be more inclined to purchase a game digitally, same applies if a game has a silly or bland title which might not look very cool displayed on a shelf. I might make some exceptions though if the game in question is part of a series I´ve been collecting for for a while, so in that case I might get the game physically even if I´m not too keen on the boxart, like with pokemon sun, the boxart for which I personally think looks odd because of Solgaleo´s face seeming kinda flat, which would likely have looked better at a different angle.
Regarding different types of boxes, I personally like the european PS1 ones, possibly better than the american ones since the european ones feel kinda sturdy with how thick they are, while the american ones feel incredibly fragile, like they´d crack if you looked at them the wrong way, I hate the european DS game boxes though, and I´m not too keen on how the PS2 and gamecube ones look over there either, I also prefer the look of the ESRB logo over the PEGI ones and others from the region, or any rating that has numbers in it for that matter, as I much prefer letters in those.
As for retro games that used to come in cartridges I gotta say I don´t miss cardboard boxes at all since those get damaged very easily, and I´ve been considering getting replacement boxes for several of those, like those DS-looking boxes for game boy games and the VHS-looking ones for N64 and SNES titles. I´ve also thought about printing my own custom boxart for games that have cover art I´m not too keen on but still want to own physically.

[wartoy]

I collect loose carts for hard to find complete systems like Nes, Snes or Jaguar ect.  but prefer cib and I pick up loose boxes when I find them.

Disc base games or smaller carts like Ds,3ds or switch have to be complete. I do have a couple I got for free though.

I try to buy all Sega Genesis games complete. Unless I've never seen it before then I'll try to upgrade it in the future.

I have bought a upgrade to a game I already own because I found it complete and the cover art was awesome.

Yes I am influenced by a games cover art I sometimes face the cover of a game outward to display it.

[snyderec3]

I display my boxes separately from my carts. Boxes go on one shelf, while games go in UGCs on another. This protects the box from the wear of being opened every time I want to play a game, and all my carts match on the shelf since they get a UGC whether or not I have the original box or not.

[pzeke]

do you have games that are CD/cartridge only, or do they make you cringe?

Yeah, I have games in my collection that are cartridge- and disc-only. I don't mind the former as much as I do the latter, though. Most of the disc-based games I have that are incomplete, which aren't really that many, are mainly due to sellers on eBay not being honest about what they were selling or I got from GameStop.com.

Do you have game cases that you can't stand looking at, because of a tear or so on?

The cases for my games look clean and spiffy, and if any were to look below my standards I would simply replace them. Unfortunately, buying games from GameStop.com is a hit or miss deal most of the time, so sometimes I'm sent games with crappy cases while being short of any extras for replacement purposes, which tends to mess things up.

Have you ever bought a game, just for the cover art? Is it important to you?

Brutal: Paws of Fury for the SNES, which I got in a BOGO sale at Toys"R"US solely because I was awestruck by the cover. This was when I was a kid, but that was enough for me to never getting games based on their box art; I didn't own too many games back then, though, so I mostly would rent instead.

Quite recently I wanted to get NieR: Automata - Game of the YoRHa Edition for the cover since I like Akihiko Yoshida's art, but I ended up getting the original, non-GameSpot rating copy for cheap. As someone who at one point in time used to collect comicbooks solely for their cover art and variants, I'm certain had I continued to do this with video games, things would've spiraled out of control and my collection would've been unmanageable, so I'm glad I made and managed to correct that mistake early.

Overall, the cover art isn't that important to me, but it does help complement the whole package.

[...] Don't get me even started on the poorer quality of modern cases which encourages loose discs in sealed games... happens far too often these days

Most PS4 cases are worth scat. Some are thicker than the rest and actually feel well-made, but the rest are just as flimsy and unreliable as you're describing, especially with the loose disc thing.

Box art is a dying art form, you can see it's the same way with movie posters. But in the age of hyperrealistic 3D modeling I guess there's not a reason to hirer an artist to design something cool most of the time.

Yeah, pretty much. I'd say that hardly any video game box art or movie poster captures my attention the same way they used to. With movie posters, for example, most tend to just be a hodgepodge of ideas lazily strewn together turning the end product into the most generic POS you could ever get, a good example of this being the poster for "Spider-Man: Homecoming", or more recently, "Morbius".

I miss the good old days where movie posters were beauteous pieces of art: Drew Struzan, Roger Kastel, Tom Jung, Richard Amsel, Barry E. Jackson, Enzo Sciotti, Robert Peak, Steven Chorney, Alex Ebel, Carl Ramsey, Bill Gold, Renato Casaro—all masters of their craft.