Header and images courtesy of https://bigboxcollection.com – my new favourite website!
Why did we stop treating game packaging like it was worth a bit of drama?
There was a time when a game box had to work. It had to fight for your attention. It had to scream louder than the one next to it. And the louder it screamed, the better.
You weren’t looking at gameplay. You weren’t checking reviews. You were staring at a painting of a cybernetic skull exploding out of a lava pit while helicopters crashed overhead and a man with no neck held a rocket launcher the size of a small car. That was the pitch. That was the sale. That was the art.
And it worked.
You knew the game didn’t actually look like that. Nobody cared. The box was about tone. About promise. About making you believe you were buying something outrageous. Something dangerous. Something that maybe shouldn’t be in a shop next to Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit.
And then there were the PC big boxes. These things were majestic. Huge cardboard slabs filled with thick manuals, map inserts, tech trees, maybe even a novella if the studio was feeling fancy. You didn’t just get a game. You got an object. Something to display. Something to argue about when your mate bought the Amiga version and got different cover art entirely.
Command & Conquer. Wing Commander. MechWarrior 2. These boxes were oversized, overpriced, and absolutely beautiful. You could stack them. You could alphabetise them. You could lose half a shelf to just one publisher’s collection. And it felt good.
Some of them lied. Boldly. Shamelessly. The cover promised cinematic gunfights. The game delivered ten pixels and a beep. Still didn’t matter. The box art set the mood. It made you want to believe.
Today? You get a rectangle with a character’s back facing a grey horizon. Maybe a sword. Maybe a rifle. Maybe some explosions. It’s not art. It’s product photography. Designed to offend no one and excite even fewer.
Digital storefronts made it worse. What used to be a canvas is now a thumbnail. Developers cram logos, ratings, and quotes into a tiny square like they’re trying to make a legal disclaimer exciting. It’s not even about the game anymore. It’s about fitting into a layout.
Some publishers still try. Indie devs, especially, know how to make a splash with key art. But most AAA stuff now looks like it was made by a risk management team. No colour. No weirdness. Just floating heads and a logo. You could swap the titles and barely notice.
We lost something when we gave up on box art. It wasn’t just marketing. It was ambition. It was attitude. It told you what the game wanted to be. Not what it looked like. Not what frame rate it ran at. What it wanted to be. That was enough.
The boxes are gone. The shelves are gone. But the art? Still lives. In scans. In archives. In the back of your memory when you think about why you picked up that copy of Doom in the first place. It wasn’t because of a bullet point on the back. It was because the front looked like a punch to the face.
And that’s worth remembering.
What’s the first game you remember buying because the box art sold you a lie and you didn’t even care?
