by Beat Suter
Packaging for video games has become obsolete. Today, 90% of all games are streamed as data or downloaded via the internet. Only a small proportion of video games are still packaged and placed on shelves in electronics stores. It used to be very different.
A video game had to attract attention through its packaging, as it was lined up in stores on shelves in large rooms full of boxes. And potential players had to enjoy and somewhat laboriously rummage through stacks or well-sorted long rows of tables. The early packaging did not show the gameplay of a game but conveyed a stimulating idea of the game world. Professional graphic designers created covers with expressive, realistic heroes and scenes that went far beyond the pixel world of the game.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the standardization of such boxes was not such a resounding success. There were different types of packaging. Retailers tried to introduce standardization and, for example, did not include oversized packaging such as the large Kaiser box (1989) from Swiss publisher LINEL in their range because it did not fit on their shelves. But as soon as such a game sold well elsewhere, it was included anyway. It was not until the year 2000 that the Polybox really established itself as a standard for packaging.
This text outlines the development of game packaging over the decades with a special focus on Swiss video games that were available on the open market.
Continue reading A Box is not just a Box: Game packaging in the course of time
