Well, since we're allowed to bash boxes here now...

I grew up in a suburb on the edge of town. The only thing within walking distance was a convenience store. I mostly raised myself on shareware and demos.

I believe the only games I got boxed were the first three Civilization games, Flashback, Astro Chase 3D (whose "Earth will be destroyed" concept terrified me as a kid), and some Gameboy cartridges. Plus there were those CDs with a bunch of demos that came with various computer magazines.

There was also a compilation box of different games of varying quality. King's Quest 7 and Outpost got the most play time from me.

That is just silly. Would a non-standard box not cost quite a lot extra to make?

I have the original Thief game, in a regular rectangular box. I remember the store where I bought the game had the regular box on display, but several of the cut off triangle boxes were behind the counter, where the extra space they took was less of an issue. I bought a regular box, for ease of storage. Thief 2 did the same thing.

There were a couple of offenders with the weird "triangle with the top removed" box shape: Thief, Omikron The Nomad's Soul, and at least a couple of Legacy of Kain games. Those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there were others. It's was kind of popular to be different with the box shape for awhile, but afaik all it ever succeeded in doing was annoying the people who bought your game.

I can't say I feel the same. Sure, some were special. But most of them were just crazy amounts of padding for a jewel cased disc and flimsy manual. Once CDs became the mainstay media big boxes just became a waste of cardboard. There were a few good examples though. Even today the Hitchhiker's Guide box is something fondly remembered.

There are things I miss about that era (such as the few manuals that really did warrant the bigger box). But generally speaking it's mostly just a case of rose tinted glasses if we're honest here.

Don't miss them very much, but I'm still happy to see Wasteland 2 come in A BIG BOX.

On the other hand getting rid of boxes, manuals or extra stuff we didn't get anything, the price is the same, even more expansive in digital form.

I'm far to into digital distribution by this point I don't care anymore.

It's all fun having the PDF to read when you're downloading or installing the games, not so fun when you have to refer to them while you're playing them. Thankfully I have a tablet to refer to them on, but some games - like Might and Magic 1 - require you to have the manual to hand for the spell codes.

Before I had the tablet, I was forced to play the GOG version of M&M1 in windowed mode.

The reason I share that enthusiasm is because of what's actually in the box. That's the crucial difference. It's not just wasteful padding.

Pretty much the same for me.

Pretty much this. If it's just a DVD in a jewel case/Amaray box and a wafer thin manual, then they can leave the box be as far as I'm concerned. I've still got the first two Eye of the Beholder games on disc and they have all of the bits and bob still in. The boxes were huge, but they were filled up.

Compare that with the "Software Pyramide" games that you have here in Germany - they sell them in the old big-box format, but all that's in there is a DVD Amaray box or CD jewel case with the CD inside. Not even the case itself has a manual in there.

Don't really miss boxed copies that much. Besides, I need the storage space I would have spent on those for my rapidly expanding board game and RPG book collection.

I suppose I miss the old box games for a number of reasons. First off, the box art, which seems to be soemthing of a forgotten art nowadays. 90% of the cases for games that I see when I go into a game store nowdays all look the same. I also appreciated that a lot of box games came with physical manuals. Many games were a bit scant on the manuals, but I thoguht it was always nice to have them. I also liked having a physical copy of my games, whether in CD case form or CD+case. of course, a lot of games would have a big box with little in them, which is just a waste of space, so it varies. For what I would consider a positive example, Total War gold had the first three Total War games with all expansions and a truely hefty manual-there wasn't a bit of wasted space in there whatsoever.

I don't miss the boxes, but I miss the stuff that was inside. These days you need to pay for a "collector's edition" and a guide to get the kind of stuff that used to come out with the standard editions. I especially miss the RPG manuals that had all the detailed background information about the game world.

I'm a minimalist when it comes to packaging material. I hate nothing more than seeing food come in elaborate cardboard and plastic boxes, and when every single piece of chocolate is individually wrapped. Plus, I scarcely have enough space on my shelves for my collection of books. I am grateful for GOG's virtual shelf page. It's like owning the boxes, but without the clutter. Now, if only there was a way to get proper paper manuals...