My post from another thread:
Gather 'round the fire friends and I'll tell ya a little story. A long time ago, before most of you were born, games came in Big Boxes. You see back then games were actually fairly complicated and developers shipped them with neat items called "manuals".
These "manuals" were found inside the Big Boxes (which really didn't seem big at the time). They included instructions and strategies for playing the game. You see PC memory and processing power was limited and things like in-game help, tutorials, instructional levels and the like weren't possible.
And the boxes had to be big by necessity. You see before CDs we had "floppy disks". Often games would ship with a dozen of these unreliable, costly-to-manufacture disks and you needed a lot of box space for them. When CDs first appeared publishers jumped on them because they saved a ton of money.
Anyway, all was well. The games were good and took time to master. No worries, though, as we had "manuals". The Big Boxes also had reference cards, maps and sometimes even secret decoder rings (well, actually not).
Jump forward 10 years. Games began devolving into something that would appeal to the lucrative "mass market" audience. No longer were games made complicated or deep because publishers wanted to appeal to a broader consumer base. TO make more money of course. Yeah, you know where I'm going but here's something you didn't know:
A publisher named Sierra, now no more, had the great idea that manuals were no longer needed and they could save a lot of money by simply not bothering with them. They first did this with a few simulation games. People were outraged of course but that wouldn't be enough to stop other companies from following evil Sierra's lead.
Jump forward another 5 years. All the big publishers have either greatly stripped down game manuals or just haven't bothered with them at all. You're lucky to get a brief booklet and all that does is tell you how to install the game and maybe point out a few keyboard commands.
At about this time publishers became even more greedy. Not only would they refuse to include an adequate manual with your game but they had the nerve to charge you for what was called "Official Strategy Guides". These were really the old manuals in disguise. Their content used to be in the manual but now you had to shell out for them.
Ironically, these didn't make publishers the Big Money they sought. You see, when they dumbed down games to the point where any Jack Whack could play them, they took away the challenge and thus need for extra help. Why buy a strategy guide when all you do is shoot everything that moves, find the keycard and hump the nearest door?
Enter the frickin' Europeans. Some bright marketing mind, probably a game retailer exec. in France, decided they could offer more titles if all the boxes were a lot smaller. Hey, the games no longer had manuals, maps, reference cards, strategy guides or a ton of discs so why have large boxes?
Thus they told the publishers, "no soup for you unless it's in little elf bowls". Or something. Publishers didn't have a choice but really didn't mind as it cut their production costs even more. It also gave them another excuse to use when the ever-shrinking "where's my forking manual?!" mob occassionally tried to voice their needs.
Jump forward to today. US retailers are following the evil ones in Europe. Walk into a software store and you'll see more and more tiny little boxes. Tiny little boxes that still can't be returned if the games suck, another perk the publishers and retailers forced down our throats at some point in the past to save money.
Will PC game boxes get even smaller? Not anytime soon. Marketers still realize many consumers make impulse purchases based on box art and screenshots. If you reduce the size any further you reduce impulse sales.
Anyway, sorry for the book. Just reminiscing.
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