It's just cardboard though, all it does is take up space.

If the box is well-done, then no, it's not "just" cardboard, and does more than take up space.

It also gives you a beautiful work of art to look at.

Here's the box art from one of my favorite boxes from my one of favorite games:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/nocturne/cover-art/gameCoverId,5140/

It looks much better in-person than it does in digital format like the pictures shown at that link. Just like magazines and comic books are much better to read in physical copies than digital ones.

As for the question in the OP: that depends on what type of boxes you are talking about. Shortly before physical distribution went extinct on PC, all the games started to be shipped in tiny & pathetic boxes, which sucked a lot and were highly useless.

If that's the type of boxes that you are talking about, then they might as well not exist any more.

Prior to that, however, boxes were big and beautiful...so if you are talking about that type of boxes, then yes, I do miss those.

I do.

I still purchase the physical boxed versions of movies whether they are DVD-ROM discs of movies or Blu-Ray discs of movies.

I've never been into paying a lot for art / putting a box on a shelf or empty cardboard boxes (they do fetch a high price on Ebay for collectors of old out of print games though). Discs do have the advantage of permanence though, ie, if a dev wants to make an undesirable change / needs to remove a soundtrack for expired license reasons, the disc will always remain the same unlike updating the GOG version whilst simultaneously removing the older version from re-download for non-client users...) I think the real problem is the sheer number of non-update updates GOG puts out (ie, "updated installer structure, no changes to game files") usually involving changing the structure of the installer for some reason related to Galaxy.

I do own a BD-R drive and can (and have) made an optical backup of older "finished" games that have "settled down" for pretty much the same result. And whilst the GOG Covers site is awesome (maintained by user dawnpatrol) for those who want to do their own, I tend to not print such artwork due to backing up a lot more than just 1 game per disc. Eg, games like Avadon or VVVVVV that take up barely 100MB each, you can fit over 200x of those onto 1x BD-R which takes up a lot less room than 200x discs for 200x games. Take it one step further and store those discs on a spindle or high capacity 6x disc DVD case vs individual case with 1x disc each, and you're looking at over 1,000x such smaller games stored in the width of 1x case. That's a lot of space saved.

So short answer is, I do still use optical as a "tertiary" archival backup format (in addition to HDD's), but I store them in a space-efficient archival manner rather than how a "collector" looks to showcase them on a shelf with box & artwork.

I did miss them for a while in the 2000s, but not anymore. I'm already having trouble to find space for all my books. I couldn't realistically find a place for my whole digital game library, especially if they still had the big boxes from the days of old.

I used to, had more a less one room filled. That time has gone though. We now move into the age of online streamed only. You could maybe buy a monitor, hang it on the wall and rent/stream some images of shelves with games on, but that the only thing now.

not at all
I hated how they just took up space or became garbage, totally pointless to make them

I don't, but I'm not someone who's ever found enjoyment, pleasure, or any sort of romanticism in collecting and storing physical formats for digital media. As Randalator said, physical copies have been lame (and I'd argue that to an extent also kind of worthless) for ages, even some of the old videogame cardboard boxes only held a CD(s) and a promotional leaflet. So all in all, no, and I'd say that digital storefronts have also helped create better physical collector's edition sets for those who want them.

stop pretending you own a single one bum

why are you trolling?

You know, I admit that nowadays I changed my mind about it.

Previously I really liked physical releases and was unhappy with the fact that with increasing Steam popularity, physical releases became useless (even if they included CD/DVD with game, it was very often useless due to the fact that you had anyway download all updates and other stuff to play it after installation). Plus - in recent years I've used the fact that finally I've started to earn some normal salary and I was hunting on ebay and other auction services, to catch the old games which I really wanted to buy and play back when I was younger (but never had a chance, due to many reasons).

As a result - my collection started to grow, which on one hand make me happy, that I could obtain and play so many great titles from 90 and early 2000'. But on the other hand - storing them in my small room became quite a challenge. At this point, I gave up such ideas as "making physical" some of games I own on GOG (in fact I've found places where it can be done relatively cheap, assuming that I will make only CD/DVD plus simple plastic case), basically because I don't have anymore free space to store it. Plus I'm not certain about their sustainability (I'm generally storing them in dry places, not exposed on the sunlight, so they should be fine, still since I have my external hard drive to store all GOG games, I feel like it's a bit more "certain", since I can almost at every moment copy it on new external drive, whenever it will be necessary.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/unofficial_dvd_covers_for_gog_com_games

Not the same as big game boxes with physical manuals, still worth noting though

I do this. I almost got into those digital sites like Vudu, but after multiple buy outs and corporate changes that resulted in me losing access to movies that paid for, I never did that again. I only buy physical. I wait untill a black friday sale and buy a boatload of older movies at a fraction of the cost.
That is is what I do. I have copies of games like Metro Last Light that are steam based but having the disk and box gives me peace of mind. I would not have bought it at full price had I not gotten the physical box/disk.

Thankfully I have never gotten into Vudu or any other rental or subscription service for movies.

I know 100% for sure that I never will. I do not think Amazon or Netflix or Vudu care that I am not a monthly paying customer to their services for movies and T.V. shows, but I am sticking it to them by never ever paying them for that. Physical boxed versions of movies for life until the day I die.

For movies and T.V. shows I will never for as long as I live rent or subscribe to them I will just purchase the physical boxed versions of movies for as long as I live.

I wish physical boxed PC versions of video games that are 100% Digital Rights Management (DRM) free without needing a Steam key or CD Keys or whatever were still sold :(.