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"DVD style cases: Good or Bad?"

My personal opinion: BAD
Before, PC software was distinctive, bright boxes with the interior space normally made use of by a majority of companies, now our fave format is in the peril of looking just like the thousands of second-rate Playstation and Dreamcast games - uniform and boring.
And my copy of RED ALERT 2 looks silly stacked amongst my other big boxes, including the other C&C titles.

DVD boxes are definately the way forward, they mean not only less wasted paper etc.. but it also means companies who sell games can sell more, as less self/storage space is taken up per game. This increased variety is surely of good news to everyone, more choice is a positive benefit... and if the game companies make more money who cares!

Eventually games in DVD boxes will go down in price like their bigboxed counterparts.

That's a bllody good point. I've got CD Drawers, CD towers, everything to hold CDs and nowhere to store bloody DVD cases! Annoying ands just a way for games publishers to make more cash.

PLEASE CAN AT LEAST ONE OF MY POSTS WIN A PRIZE!!!

Andi

Yeah, but does anyone know where i can buy a good DVD rack which i can hang on my wall or something??

Games manufactureres never seem to use the same size boxes anyway, so they never line up properly on a shelf - at least DVD style cases are all the same size, so you can store them together, and in a DVD rack. Very handy...

very very good,i bought quake 1 and the box is HUGE and wouldn't fit in my bag,all that was in it was 1 cd around cardboard to stop it from going everywhere in the box and the instrucions which could easily have fit into the side of the dvd casing.

excellent idea and cheaper to make too.

DVD style cases are much better than the boxes of old. I have recently bought the settlers 3 Gold Edition, for example. The box is considerably larger than the average, which might look good on the shelf, but is just annoying when you get it home. Inside there is a double CD (in a standard single CD case), a tiny instruction manual (<15 pages) inside the cd case. There is also a registration card, but the largest thing in the box is the product catalogue advertising bluebyte's other games! Come on, that IS ridiculous!

I'm all for the plastic DVD style boxes that are now appearing in the shops, however, the cardboard syle are dreadful, don't keep shut and are easily damaged - but I bet they're dirt cheap to produce!

Something that occured to me today when I saw the continuation of DVD PC cases in a local store, was an article written in PC Format ages ago. They basically broke down where the cost of a PC game goes e.g. Publisher x%, Coders x%, Box/Packaging x%.

Now that the market is converting to DVD style cases, surely they are saving money on nice shiny cardboard boxes? They are also probably saving on shipping costs as the product is now a lot smaller to pack ?

However this saving hasn't been passed on to the end consumer. e.g. DVD size games 29.99 glossy box game 29.99 !

Don't get me wrong I like the smaller cases, I chuck 80% of game boxes anyway, but it looks to me like there might actually being some extra money made here that no ones really noticed yet anybody seen any figures on the costs of making these things ?

WyreDragon wrote:
> the second disk is in one of those [cruddy] little cardboard
> sleeves - I hate those, they scratch the hell out of the disks.

Yes, it is rather poor. I mean, couldn't they have used DVD cases like those supplied with Gladiator collector's edition? That has two discs in it, but the publishers have gone to the effort of sourcing a case that has room for loads of discs, by using a third plastic flap in the middle that can hold two further discs. Red Alert 2's packaging is just annoying. Especially as you have to remove the manual to get at the 'Allies' disc.

Anyway, it is a move in the right direction I think. Cardboard box packaging has always been ridiculous - to take a classic case, I own a copy of the Transport Tycoon expansion pack (remember that game?) from many years ago. What's in the box? One (yes, that's ONE) 3.5" floppy disk, a registration card and a thin 40 page manual. There are actually two cardboard spacers to fill the space so the contents doesn't rattle around! This is THE most crazy example I've ever seen...

So, all hail the DVD case! Just make them so they hold more than one disc, okay game publishers?

The only thing that gets to me is when games like Alice come on two CD's and the second disk is in one of those s****y little cardboard sleeves - I hate those, they scratch the hell out of the disks.

I guess it'll stop being a problem once everyone has DVD drives and CD games vanish, but until then it bugs the hell out of me.