I agree, but more specifically a well written manual. Not getting screwed over on the price for some of the cool add-ins that came with the package. No bullshit DRM.

I wondered about that in e.g. SE Asia, why all sweets etc. were wrapped individually.

I learned it the hard way: because of the heat and humidity, they'd otherwise get melted and stuck together in no time. A bit different than in here dry and chilly Finland.

(But I still get your point and agree, just little off-topic.)

Hey guys, if you want to sell away your boxed games, let me know. I'm interested in buying.

I don't miss a single thing. Why? Because I STILL buy boxed ultra mega collection edition games :-P (and when they will abandon the boxed/CD format for good, I'll probably pirate way more games than now....)

Btw, I bet the OP opened the thread after reading this article in the weekend :-P

You know, it's a weird thing, but with many of my boxed games, I can remember how and when I went out and bought them and how I had some of the strangest and most memorable experiences while I was collecting them. I think that's part of the magic of boxed games - you can tell that they have a history. Some games I actually remember sitting on the bus, going home, and reading the manual in anticipation of actually playing it.

I have Raiden 2 on CD, for example (fairly rare to be sure), and I remember picking it up from the post office a decade ago and seeing a woman in front of me in the queue with a pig on a leash. I picked up Final Fantasy 7 on PC off eBay, and I remember being religiously sat on a stool at an internet terminal in my university pub outbidding everyone to get it.

First game I bought off GOG, on the other hand, was Redneck Rampage, but I couldn't tell you offhand when I bought it, where I was, or any funny experiences surrounding it. Just feels so soulless.

I mainly remember the games from when I was a lot younger, and had to save my weekly allowance in order to buy a game. I still remember when i was 5 (and not far from turning 6) and I bought Shadowgate. But then as I grow slightly older I found out how much cheaper it was to order things by phone, so many of the games I bought after I had turned ~8-9 were through these mailorder stores.
When my family bought its first PC I started to buy games in stores again, but this time I was shocked by how much cheaper PC games were in general. Budget-titles for 100sek (~10€), well I knew where my allowance would go! I went from being able to afford a game every 4th month to (if I only wanted to buy games) 2 per month! And sometimes I would get more than one game in each box! Suddenly buying each individual game lost a lot of its value. They meant far less to mean, as I was getting more of them.
I still have a few memories related to buying games though, like when I bought Crusader: No remorse, and the woman across the counter was unsure if she should sell a game like that to me. The conversation went like this:
She: Do you know what this game contains?
Me: Kinda
She: And does your parents know that you are playing these kinds of games?
Me: Eh, yes I think so.
She: Well..
quiet for a while.
She: That will be 99sek.

The boxes, not so much. The manuals maps, and reference cards that came inside, very much. Especially the reference cards.

I miss the excitement of starting a game on an intel 286 desktop pc and to experience a complete new world of ideas beside low resolution graphics and sound. I miss the occassion when mouse support in games was a premium. Maybe I miss this slightly amateurish look and feel. I don't miss the boxes anymore and I don't miss a manual at all. A good wikia-wiki is enough.