Drizzlehell
Banned
I hate to start this with the words "back in the day" because it immediately makes this post sound like something even I wouldn't wanna read but hear me out because I think in this case it's actually relevant.
So anyway, back in the day, PC games used to come in those big, beautiful boxes with an amazing-looking artwork on them, and inside you'd find all sorts of goodies apart from the game disc itself. Things like art books, thick instructions manuals, quick-start guides, posters, stamps, and various assortment of other bonus trinkets, depending on what the release was.
Then we went from that to small-box releases with only the game, the manual, and occasionally an additional user's guide or a bonus disc.
From there we went to DVD cases which only stored the game disc and maybe a short manual, then from manual to just the game disc, to a slip of paper with an activation code on it. It's like, what the hell is this? What am I even buying? A plastic case to clutter my shelf?
What really bugs me even more about this is that, what used to constitute a regular-ass physical release that you could just grab off a shelf at a normal retail price, is now considered a collector's item that goes around at increasingly ridiculous prices.
Take this release from mid-to-late 2000s for Dawn of War anthology collection. It's still not the greatest release ever because it was already long after the big box era, but it's still a decent example for the comparison that I wanna make:
It may not look like much on the photo but apart from the user guide and art book, each box also included a poster of some sort, and a bunch of strategy cards that explained how each unit worked, kinda like the stuff that you get in actual Games Workshop figurine sets. Pretty cool stuff that I managed to grab at the time and still own it.
It cost me about 25 dollars in 2009.
Now here's a "collector's edition" of the upcoming Space Marine II:
This costs about 250 dollars, and in a lot of other territories even more, depending on where you get it. Apart from the statuette that probably cost like 3 dollars to manufacture (hand-painted my ass), this is pretty much the same stuff that you'd get in a regular 60 dollar release back in the day. Arguably it wouldn't even make for a very impressive release even in 2009.
This is such a cop-out and the main reason why I don't buy physical games anymore. I used to love collecting them because of how beautiful boxed releases were and how awesome it felt to unpack them, read all the booklets, and display them on my shelf. I still have a pretty sizeable collection of PC games from that long-gone era, some of which are pretty rare and expensive right now. But nowadays all the choice I have is between a shitty blu-ray box with nothing inside of it, or a 250 dollar collector's edition that's not even worth that kind of money. Thanks, but no thanks.
So anyway, back in the day, PC games used to come in those big, beautiful boxes with an amazing-looking artwork on them, and inside you'd find all sorts of goodies apart from the game disc itself. Things like art books, thick instructions manuals, quick-start guides, posters, stamps, and various assortment of other bonus trinkets, depending on what the release was.
Then we went from that to small-box releases with only the game, the manual, and occasionally an additional user's guide or a bonus disc.
From there we went to DVD cases which only stored the game disc and maybe a short manual, then from manual to just the game disc, to a slip of paper with an activation code on it. It's like, what the hell is this? What am I even buying? A plastic case to clutter my shelf?
What really bugs me even more about this is that, what used to constitute a regular-ass physical release that you could just grab off a shelf at a normal retail price, is now considered a collector's item that goes around at increasingly ridiculous prices.
Take this release from mid-to-late 2000s for Dawn of War anthology collection. It's still not the greatest release ever because it was already long after the big box era, but it's still a decent example for the comparison that I wanna make:
It may not look like much on the photo but apart from the user guide and art book, each box also included a poster of some sort, and a bunch of strategy cards that explained how each unit worked, kinda like the stuff that you get in actual Games Workshop figurine sets. Pretty cool stuff that I managed to grab at the time and still own it.
It cost me about 25 dollars in 2009.
Now here's a "collector's edition" of the upcoming Space Marine II:
This costs about 250 dollars, and in a lot of other territories even more, depending on where you get it. Apart from the statuette that probably cost like 3 dollars to manufacture (hand-painted my ass), this is pretty much the same stuff that you'd get in a regular 60 dollar release back in the day. Arguably it wouldn't even make for a very impressive release even in 2009.
This is such a cop-out and the main reason why I don't buy physical games anymore. I used to love collecting them because of how beautiful boxed releases were and how awesome it felt to unpack them, read all the booklets, and display them on my shelf. I still have a pretty sizeable collection of PC games from that long-gone era, some of which are pretty rare and expensive right now. But nowadays all the choice I have is between a shitty blu-ray box with nothing inside of it, or a 250 dollar collector's edition that's not even worth that kind of money. Thanks, but no thanks.
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