Big Boxes.

computer games used to come in boxes they still do but they're not as magnificent as they once were they're smaller material efficient and in an age of digital distribution often entirely absent it's all very practical boxes are supposed to fit their contents anything more is wasteful and yet there is a nostalgia that surrounds old games beyond the software itself in the cover art the manuals copy protection even the disks and the box binds all these things together an encapsulation of more than just zeros and ones it's something deeply evocative of the golden age of pc gaming from doom to deus ex spanning from the early 90s to the start of the millennium there's no doubt the pc was the place to be so many innovations so many classics many of which exclusive [Music] one of the most obvious things you'll notice about games of this era is the size of their boxes they're much larger than anything you'd see today apart from special editions the most common size you'll find is 185 millimeters across 235 millimeters tall and 40 millimeters deep oh there abouts this is the big box the gold standard for collectors and a particularly nostalgic memory for pc gamers of a certain age the vast majority of pc games from the 1990s were sold in this format at least for their original release budget games and compilations often cut packaging to save money but the full price market was almost universally full sized what might be surprising is that the big box was a natural convergence unlike the console market computer game retail wasn't regulated publishers were free to put their games in whatever size boxes they desired but despite this things were surprisingly uniform [Music] take my amiga collection for instance it's fairly modest comprising a couple of hundred box titles and it spans from the amiga's launch in 1985 to its commercial death around 1996. most of them are in big boxes and most of them come from the time when the amiga was at peak popularity circa 1991 to 1993 and declining sharply after commodore's bankruptcy in 1994 however it's the earliest games that are most interesting not only because they're rare and expensive as i've discovered but also because none of them are in big boxes in fact the earlier you go the weirder the packaging and it seems there were a few attempts to standardize computer game packaging before everything converged on the big box [Music] if we collect my collection by size we can see exactly when the big box emerged the format constitutes most releases in 1991 and by 1992 is entirely dominant this would coincide with the golden era of pc gaming and thus matches our expectations so far but it doesn't reveal much about where or why the big box became the standard to understand that we should examine the big box's emergence the earliest example of a true standard big box i have is the amiga release of maniac mansion it's one of the few lucasfilm games that had a distinctive marble boarded box shared with loom their finest hour and the secret of monkey island along with a few others i should note that maniac mansion originally released in 1987 for the commodore 64 and apple ii but neither were in a conventional big box the amiga version released alongside the atari st version in july 1989 with revised packaging none of the games lucasfilm released in 1987 or 88 came in a big box battle hawks 1942 for instance has the distinctive marble packaging but in a smaller format pype mania known in the us's pipe dream is interesting the eu release came in a small box and was published by empire but the american release was published by lucasfilm themselves in a big box this was released in june 1989 just one month before the 16-bit maniac mansion release and i think this marks when lucasfilm first adopted the big box another early adopter was microprose from around 1990 m1 tank platoon and f19 stealth fighter both boast bigger boxes f-19 was a remake of an 8-bit game called project stealth fighter released in 1987 and like most of micropro's 8-bit games it came in a smaller box it wasn't until the transition to purely 16 big games that we see larger boxes f-19 stealth fighter and f-15 strike eagle 2 seem to be the first for simulators a bigger box makes sense there's often a lot of documentation required for these more complex games along with printed maps keyboard overlays and aircraft recognition charts the big box gave these games room to breathe looking at the data it's clear there's another standard size that slightly predates the big box it's around 150 millimeters across by 180 millimeters tall a fair bit smaller than its successor but it's still large enough to fit a few discs a copy protection wheel and a manual it will even happily accommodate the larger five and a quarter inch discs as used by earlier pcs and some maybe systems i call this format the mid box as it lies somewhere between the smaller cases used by 8-bit games and the later big box it lasted a good three or four years on the amiga starting in 1988 until replacement by the big box in 1991 in the years between it was the standard if you bought an amiga or atari st game this was the former you could expect the biggest hits of 1989 simcity and populous were both mid boxes yet their sequels came in a big box lotus esprit turbo challenge released in 1990 in a mid box its sequel a year later in 1991 came in a big box it's clear there was a sudden shift the mid box was a secure standard but within the space of a year everyone flogged to the larger format [Music] if we go back further there is another standard quite like the mid box but significantly taller i call it the tall mid box it's 150 millimeters wide again but 220 millimeters tall most of my amiga games from 1988 come in this format including the original xenon and the attractive blue boxes that came from rainbird such as for carrier command and starglider take a look at this advert from a 1988 issue of compute magazine it shows a selection of games in their packaging from that era most of which are approximately the same size but they're far from uniform we see different heights different thicknesses some are two-part boxes others open from the top this size of box can trace its heritage back to the ones used for atari vcs cartridges and a number of 8-bit publishers adopted a similar packaging format as a more prestigious alternative to the typical dual cases [Music] as far as the amiga is concerned though once you hit 1987 things start to get weird there's no standard at all publishers were yet to find their feet with the new 16-bit platforms for instance electronic arts were a relatively big player at this time big enough to attempt to install their own packaging format their releases from the mid-1980s resemble gatefold lps attractive full-color folios with an internal pocket for the discs their first releases for the amiga such as deluxe paint and marble madness were in this format as well as some of their earlier 8-bit games such was ea's influence that a couple of other publishers followed their lead micro illusions released the fairy tale adventure in folio format and the software tool works did the same with chess master 2000 even activision released a couple of gatefold games such as hakka in 1986 it didn't last however when the 16-bit market failed to take off in the way ea hoped they quietly retired the gatefold by the end of the 80s replacing it with a more conventional box it was a near miss a little too early to hit the mainstream 16-bit market and impractical for games with a heavier payload of disks or documentation but if this standard had taken hold we might have had a collection of miniature lp style games instead of the big box [Music] if ea drew inspiration from music formats mindscape were clearly thinking of the bookshelf for some of their early releases games like deja vu and balance of power were presented as books perhaps to emphasize the importance of reading the manual or simply to blend in on the bookshelf practically these suffer from the same shortfall as the gay faults there was no accommodation for games with physical accessories or multiple discs although documentation was catered for so eventually they decided that a box was far more useful than a slim pocket glued to a book the box for uninvited in 1987 was of a reasonable size but not the standard to be squarer considerably wider and shorter than the later big box but certainly in the right ballpark there are in fact quite a few early boxes that were almost aligned to what would be the later standard cygnosis were one of the pioneers of fancy packaging on the amiga and they had their own large-sized format as early as 1987 with games like barbarian and pteropods these boxes resemble standard ones at first glance but they're a little bit shorter a little bit wider and thinner than a standard big box still it's close and cygnosis early releases will happily rub shoulders with later boxes without too much upset they stuck with their slim big box for quite some time with 1991's lemmings released in the format there were some experiments 1989 shadow of the beast and its 1990 sequel came in a frankly outrageous double wide mid box clearly occupying double the shelf space must mean it's double the game still the free t-shirt was a nice bonus by the time of lemmings 2 the retail standards had become strong enough to force them to use conventional size boxes [Music] some publishers were stubborn ssi opted for a slightly smaller box size about 145 by 220 millimeters in about 1984 a format that led to these so-called gold box games starting in 1988 with pool of radiance they stuck with this former until as late as 1994 eventually switching to a conventional big box which is why some of their later games such as eye of the beholder are dwarfed by their contemporaries sierra also stuck first to their own format but they were amongst the first publishers to find a mass market for pc games with their adventure games selling well even in the earliest days of the ibm pc this afforded them an opportunity to design their own packaging and they opted for a size which is remarkably close to the later standard just five millimeters narrower and 10 millimeters shorter they chose a larger box that was typical for the era to better serve the type of game they were making adventure games often came on multiple discs more than my fit a small box and they wanted to be able to include physical things maps etc as a way to add value to the package and a tangible dimension to their game's world similar in this regard is infocom best known for their text adventures such as zork and their devotion to filis physical items included with their games including maps coins and scratch and sniff cards they introduced a gray box format in 1984 which had ample accommodation for all the included goodies by 190x230 millimeters a very similar size to sierras richard garriott of ultima fame worked with sierra until 1983 at which point he set up his own company origin systems he was initially drawn to sierra due to their willingness to present his games in the manner he desired and of course the big boxes and cloth maps continued under the origin system's label another aspect we haven't yet explored is more serious software remember the pc wasn't primarily a gaming platform it was a land of spreadsheets and databases and while there's little to no standardization of productivity software packaging it's possible there may be some influence on games serious software came with a serious price tag and often required substantial documentation so large packages were not uncommon however there does exist a space between application and entertainment and certain publishers wedged themselves into this space focusing on edutainment and heavyweight simulation broderbund were one such publisher famed for their early hits such as loadrunner karateka and prince of persia all of these came in smaller boxes as was standard for the time once they started to target 16-bit hardware however the packaging size made a significant leap where in the world is calm in san diego and the ancient art of war series both came in larger than standard boxes publishers in a similar edutainment space took note such as the software tool works mavis beacon teaches typing and the hunt for red october were both big box clad so now we've plotted some points in the history of the big box we can assemble a timeline of its emergence the big box had an international presence but looking at its origin it's clear that it started with american software principally with the adventure rpg and simulation genres this means it's likely the format was designed around imperial measurements rather than metric so the standard exterior size is seven and a quarter by nine and a quarter inches then likely designed to accommodate seven by nine inch material inside with a quarter inch tolerance this is a similar aspect ratio to us letter size paper the big box is totemic to pc games of the 1990s but it was in gestation for most of the 1980s it seems one recurring trend is the adoption of the big box to mark a transition to 16-bit software but this didn't happen all at once there are three distinct waves the first were the early adopters these adopted the big box for purely practical concern either because they wanted the space inside or they wanted to present their games in a certain way in the earliest days computer games didn't come in boxes at all you'd get a ziploc bag with a photocopied manual it's not hard to see why someone proud of their work might want to put out something more professional perhaps the earliest big boxes were those used by avalon hill they were a long-standing publisher of strategic board games and in 1980 they started to publish computer games as well the boxes they used were huge partly to accommodate the playing instructions and maps used for the games but also to sit alongside their board games on the shelf perhaps more influential worse sierra their games resemble the later big box standard much more closely and given the massive success that the king's quest series had it's likely that they established a packaging template for future publishers to follow the second wave were more commercially minded these were publishers drawn to the emerging 16-bit market they adopted the big box to position their games as a higher value product glossier and more prestigious than cheaper 8-bit fare it's important to remember that even towards the end of the 1980s the market for 16-bit games was quite limited where cheap and cheerful 8-bit games could sell hundreds of thousands of copies even the biggest selling 16-bit games would be lucky to break five figures not only that but 16 bit games were more expensive to make so to recoup costs they had to be priced substantially higher 30 or 40 dollars for a new release often more [Music] in order to justify that extra cost publishers included secondary elements free gifts posters and the prestige of a big box publishers like broderbund the software toolworks cygnosis lucasfilm and microprose established themselves early in the 16-bit life cycle and did much to shape consumers expectations for the future the final wave is the mass adoption of the big box format this happened around 1991 coinciding with a rapid growth in computer game retail a converging international video game market and declining 8-bit sales making way for a new generation publishers adopted the big box because everyone else was doing the same thing if they hadn't already and nobody wanted to offer an inferior product conversely a grossly oversized box would also prove harmful more expensive to manufacture and ship and potentially too large for shops to stock normally so a balance was struck between attention-grabbing covers and retailer shelving space a natural convergence shaped by retail force and just in time for the golden age of pc gaming the 90s were good times but by the start of the new millennium things weren't looking so good for pc game retail they had already been pushed to the back of the store and the bean counters were starting to realize that the big boxes were delivering a poor yield per square foot of shelving questions were being asked how can we improve pc retail profitability meanwhile the playstation 2 ran riot with its games selling millions kept in bijou dvd cases that were easier to ship and could populate shelves more densely and so the big box was sacrificed in the name of profitability replaced by a dvd-sized cardboard box around 2001 before switching to standard plastic cases later meanwhile steam launched in 2003 slowly ramping in popularity until digital distribution became a standard way to acquire pc games it makes sense it's the most efficient way if my entire steam library were in boxes i'd be in trouble but i like the big box and here's why think of the various packaging types we've seen dual cases belong to audio cassettes and compact discs clam shells belong to vhs and key cases belong to dvds even the ill-fated gatefold format as championed by ea was essentially just like an lp but big boxes belong to computer games nothing else can claim ownership so there's a real sense that these boxes are of that formative time redolent of an exciting frontier of cd-rom windows 95 the early world wide web and the first 3d accelerator cards obviously their useful time has passed boxes hold their contents and anything more is wasted space [Music] but maybe there's value in the box itself [Music] perhaps not the cardboard but at least the box signified ownership actual ownership rather than a rental agreement that none of us read but then things used to be simpler computer games used to come in boxes thank you very much for watching and until next time farewell you

Channel: Ahoy

Views: 787,984

Keywords: xboxahoy

Id: sWLMbmAv0tg

Length: 22min 33sec (1353 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020