Fact: PC games went to shit when they stopped selling them in big boxes in the late 90s.
>>12159567Based Take
I make big box versions of my favorite games.
>>12159581Based Creator
>>12159581Pics? Would love to see some.
>>12159581I'd also love to see those, anon.
>>12159567Back then just getting the game to run took hours of configuration so they needed A LOT of documentation along with the disks.
>>12159581Photos?
>>12159935>Back then just getting the game to run took hours of configurationNot true. That was usually DOS games when you didn't have enough memory etc.
>>12159567true, the dvd boxes were the beginning of the end
>>12159935No it didn't zoomer. All games had idiot proof installers by the 90s. Even sound card detection in dos was usually automatic and you never had to change any of the default settings.
>>12160216>All games had idiot proof installers by the 90sHe's full of shit, but you did have to configure your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to get many games to function properly, then also keep up with expanded memory requirements and rapidly changing hardware. Wasn't easy when you couldn't just google any problems you had.
>>12159935Not in my experience. I could get literally any 90s game to run flawlessly on my old Windows XP computer.
I hated the cardboard boxes, big, damage easily, and the actual disc is often inside some shitty paper sleeve.Only thing I miss are additional physical goodies that some games came with like maps.While pc gaming got overall worse with all the WoW and steam babbies shitting it up, the DVD cases were an actual improvement.
>>12160230EMM386 has been included with MS-DOS since the late 80s and the configuration was always automatic when installing DOS.
>>12160230If you had to do something special to get it running, they explained it to you in the manual or in a readme file.
>>12160242>>12160243You never tried to get Ultima 7 running.
>>12160240>Only thing I miss are additional physical goodies that some games came with like maps.That was the whole point of the big boxes. Game devs could focus on making the best possible game they could instead of having to divert resources towards tutorials and dumbing down the game for retards, because you were expected to read the manual before playing the game. It's no coincidence that the PC gaming player base became so low IQ at the same time big boxes went away.
>>12159567Once games stopped coming with instruction manuals, it went to shit. I miss being in the car on the way home with a new game and reading the manual.
>>12160267Don't worry, one day soon you'll be driven home from the doctor and reading an instruction booklet about some medical device or treatment you need. Prepare for nostalgia waves.
>>12160262>That was the whole point of the big boxes.But only a minority of games did that.Most games just had the disc, a small manual, some stupid mail-in thing to register your game (I still don't get what kind of scam this was supposed to be) or warranty card.
>>12160270>Most gamesThat you played, lol.
>>12160269Still have another 20 years until I have to worry about that. Can't beat father time, it comes for us all at some point.
>>12160276Sure, I'm not there myself, but I do drive my mother back from the doctor every now and then as she approaches 80, the role reversal put it into perspective for me.
>>12159935No, they did it because the industry used to have soul
>>12159567They didn't though. Good PC games are still made, as well as shit games, same as back then. I actually played more janky slop in the bad old days, because I had less information available.
>>12160296I'd say PC gaming has never been better. So much cool shit out there if you aren't a mainstream drone.
>>12159567It's just cardboard, whatever.
Which 1990's (year 1996) console would a child have had who didn't have a computer at home, whose parents couldn't even afford a used PC, and who was also a child who wasn't interested in playing on a PC?
>>12160309idc
>>12160296>because I had less information availableYou could've just consulted the CGW Hall of Fame. I'd argue that there was more high quality information available back then because on the internet today is paid marketing.
>>12160331*because everything on the internet
>>12160331>Diablo brought back RPGsWhat a fucking useless rag that mag was.
>>12160303Retro gaming isn't about playing games, but jerking off to trinkets, watching friend simulators, and whinging about games you haven't played.
>>12160303Nah, some games are cool, but indie devs pay too much attention to jewtube fags
>>12159935Only games that were like this in my experience was Looking Glass/Origin games.Everything else was plug n pray.
>>121603032 gems per year coming out at most from 1 man indie devs, not exactly a golden age
Did any games have manuals thicker than Jane's?
>>12160359Old games are fun too. I just never got the "sky is constantly falling" thing.>>12160382Not my experience.
>>12160389Maybe this not sure though
>>12159567Only bad games need a big cereal box to wow the kids and compensate for the shitness of the games themselves.
What a beautiful collection.
>>12159567you have a point
>>12160389microsoft flight sim and empire earth
>>12159567nice colleection OP, good taste need diablo, diablo 2 , baldurs gate but yours is better than mine
>12161304> incomprehensible sperg noises from someone who has no clue
>>12160359>>12160359>being a tarded troll gaming isn't about playing games, but jerking off to youself, watching friend simulators, and whinging about games you haven't played.
>>12159567Pretty much, yeah. I love big box games, they're my favorite thing to collect. It's almost like vinyl where you're buying a big piece of artwork and not just music alone. My most prized possession is a sealed copy of Heart of Darkness for PC that's close to mint. There's only one other sealed PC copy on eBay and I don't think it's in as good condition.
>>12161434I found it on reddit.
>>12161152Based on what I see in >>12160389, probably not. It came with I think a 5x7" manual, maybe 3/8" thick. And the thing was perfect-bound so you couldn't lay the thing flat.
>>12159567How did they arrive at that size box? CD longboxes were made to fit in Vinyl LP bins. But software boxes?Did tabletop game boxes come in particular size boxes? Thus adopted for software since they catered to similar circles of nerds, if not published by some of those companies.
>>12161738>Did tabletop game boxes come in particular size boxes?No.
>>12160216>All games had idiot proof installers by the 90sYou were not alive at the time obviously. I was aside from stuff from the likes of blizzard and ea it was often hand to hand fucking combat to get some stuff to run.
>>12161773Actually they did. Not being mean it's just I have shelf of them and yes, they are mostly roughly the same heigh as are PC big box games, probably comes from some standard shelf height used in retail.
>>12161701well whoever rounded that up had good taste, I don't use reddit, don't have an account there or any namefag media
>>12161738I think software boxes were derived from the size of the old IBM PC manuals. I just checked and they're the same exact height.
>>12161738big box occupies more of your field of view so you see big artwork and buy and be disappointed fuck you MIB you ruined my life. I almost got Warcraft 2 but then my mom found Men In Black which she assumed to be less violent so I picked that instead because MIB was the coolest shit ever to dumb kid me
>>12159581Photographs?
>>12161843Got any old tabletop games to compare? Particularly those that also went into software? (ie Avalon Hill.) I have a few games like Ultima II that came in a particularly larger, thinner box, which I *think* is comparable in size to some Steve Jackson Games boxes.
>>12161794Prove it. Mine all varied.
>>12159567Trvthnvke
>>12159567Do the boxes really need to be this big for the game to be good?There are many great games early to mid 2000s, tho
>>12163060Were they really still using big boxes in 2005? I thought they stopped in the late 90s.
>>12159567MMOs killed pc gaming.
>>12160216Wrong
>>12163190It was a mix, but yeah, by the early 2000s they were mostly on the shelves in smaller boxes. Internet meant no need for big manuals. A lot of earlier games came in those big boxes because you had the manual, promo inserts, product catalogs, and the games themselves were in multiple CDs or floppies—an old game could’ve been like a stack of 10 floppies you had to install successively. Also, a lot of the box’s function was advertising it on shelves, so you wanted it to be big and eye-catching. Game companies saw people were learning about their games via other avenues in the internet era, so you’d really go to the store to buy the game and not browse as much.
>>12163357Early MMOs were still good. Ultima Online, Everquest, Final Fantasy XI. It wasn't until WoW came along (which was actually still a good game in its first iteration) and everyone started copying the worst aspects of it that PC gaming died. WoW TBC was the final nail in the coffin.
>>12163606>Everquest, Final Fantasy XIFuck no. EQ was the worst thing to happen to online RPGs.
If pc gaming died it only died after console gaming What killed gaming was oblivion btw
>>12159567>big box for Dune 1 floppy versiongod damn, I'm impressed.the music for that game is still in my head 34 years later. fucking great compositions. The Adlib Gold recording of the worm intro, I use that to test my hi-fi systems, it has frankly insane bass on it, it makes my furniture shake..
I had forgotten there was dune for PC
>>12163625Haven't played the porn flash game parody?
/vr/ killed gaming
That is not dead which can eternal lie,And with strange aeons even death may die.
flat screens killed gaming
____ killed gaming
The actual thing that killed gaming was the abandonment of physical medias. Some may blame steam but it was inevitable
hyperbolic doomsaying killed gaming
Getting old killed gaming
video killed the radio star
gaming hurt my peepee
>>12160389
>>12163621Any idea what sondfont/doxbox settings would emulate this best? I've always used Ecco the Dolphin's Botswana to test speakers because of the bass and I'd like more stuff.
They definitely still all came out in boxes in the early 2000s lol. Just google them on ebay
being a consoomer faggot is bad feng shui you will rope yourself
>>12160382When you stack it up with how easy it is to play older games these days I’d say it is. One good new RPG a year is all I need with my current backlog
>>12161738https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWLMbmAv0tg
>>12162171ouch
>>12162171turns out the real men in black were the consumers we left in the dark along the way
>>12164719It's always been easy to play old games though. Game console emulation was already more or less perfect by the late 90s and you could run any dos game going all the way back to 1981 natively on the newest hardware of the time. There literally were no compatibility problems with anything except speed issues on some older games that you could easily solve with a simple free dos utility to limit cpu speed.
