I get the feeling I’m in the minority here, but I know I’m not alone on this one. I like to take care of my games. I take pride in keeping everything intact and in top shape. This includes the cases that my games come in. Back in the days of Nintendo boxes, I would go as far as storing all of the cardboard boxes in a safe place. Nowadays, it’s a lot easier to keep everything in top shape, as game cases are well built to withstand average wear and tear.
However, having bought a number of used game stores and more recently, having bought a number of used games, I’ve seen so many games with messed up packaging. Everything from broken cases, to missing box art, to stickers all over the box. The majority of these cases makes me wonder: what are you people doing with your games?
I can understand missing the instruction manual, to a point. Back in the day, unless you kept the box, there wasn’t really a good place to keep it. Also, most games back then required you to read it in order to get the most out of your game. However, with plastic cases and in-game tutorials, you don’t ever have to look into that book in order to play pretty much anything nowadays. A few used games I bought recently don’t come with manuals, which is a bummer, but I’ll deal.
What makes me wonder are the game cases that have taken a beating. I’ve seen games with broken cases, ripped up plastic that holds in the box art and cases that are missing the original box art. What are you doing to your games that causes them to get destroyed like that? My cases hold up just fine in what I would consider regular wear and tear, which is taking a game off the shelf to open it and putting it back on the shelf when I’m done with it. As for missing box art, why would you even take that art out in the first place? The grossest one I’ve ever seen actually had what appeared to be coffee stains on the box art. Are people literally using their games as coasters?
My biggest pet peeve of all are the game cases with stickers on them. Retailers love to place stickers on their used games. From a business perspective, it makes total sense. How else are you going to price them? Where I wish they would be more sensitive though is in the types of stickers they use.
Some of the Blockbuster stickers came off clean. Other ones aren’t so easy, and will come off in little chunks. Unless you want to go super hardcore and invest in some Goo Gone, you’re then left to scrape off the remains of a sticker, which has taken me a good 15-20 minutes depending on the sticker. And yes, I will sit there and scrape every last bit that I can from them, because I want my games to be as fresh as they can.
In the image above is my Call of Duty 3 case, which unfortunately, has seen time at an EB Games/Gamestop. They use the absolute worst case stickers on their games and are unapologetic for the damage they do. They don’t come off easily, and they leave a ton of goo on cases.
I know I’m being anal and there are much more important things to complain about as far as the condition of games go. I’ve seen probably even more game discs that look like they’ve been run through a cheese grater than I have seen damaged game cases. I just needed to get this pet peeve off my chest. My best bet in avoiding owning damaged cases is to buy new, which I do whenever I can. Even then, I still feel a bit sad every time I go to a place that sells used games and see messed up game cases. Are you like me? Or am I just a freak?
In Third Person 