Video game packaging

Possibly in an effort to occupy more shelf space than their rivals, and attract attention with their cover art, games began to be sold in large cardboard boxes.

Others came with elaborate copy-protection systems such as Zool's circular code wheel, or even a hardware dongle (although these were generally more common on expensive non-game software).

Special packages such as a "Collector's Edition" frequently still ship with oversized boxes, or those with a different material, such as a SteelBook.

In the U.S., the IEMA played a major role in improving, from a retailer's perspective, the way most PC games are packaged.

As such, the industry pressured the organization to develop a platform identification mark which would unify the display and focus the customer's brand perception.

Again the IEMA worked with publishers to create a new standard "PC" icon, and would provide its use on a royalty-free basis to the industry.

It was met with backlash initially,[8] with many users feeling that it meant they did not really 'own' their game, and that it was a form of DRM that prevented reselling their titles second-hand.

Unlike PC games, console manufacturers charge a license fee to anyone developing for their machine, and exert a certain amount of influence in the style of packaging.

All cases of PAL region games for PlayStation and Dreamcast are thicker than standard North American and Japanese CD-cases.

An exception to this were Australian-market PlayStation games later in the console's life, which were released in standard-sized jewel cases with the manual in English only.

Games for handheld systems are usually packaged in smaller boxes, to match the portable nature of the machine.

Softline play testers have rigorously examined all the rooms in the game, the program code, the documentation, and the protection scheme, and have, as yet, been unable to find evidence of one naked woman tied to a pole.

The sales arms needed illustrations to introduce a visual construct to acquaint young gamers to the gameplay concepts.

As part of the marketing effort to build hype, box art is usually released a few months before the actual game.

[13] Many early releases, especially Nintendo, replaced Japanese art with original US artwork, such as the Dragon Warrior and the Final Fantasy series.

For example, the European manual of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped for PlayStation includes six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.

While this practice has fallen out of use since the CD-ROM became the main medium for games, CD-keys serve a similar purpose and are occasionally printed somewhere in or on the manual.

Notably, most video games produced during and after the fourth generation include in-game instructions via tutorials and other such methods, meaning printed manuals are often overlooked.

Also, reading manuals on a computer monitor or other display device may be considered more "awkward" as opposed to printed paper.

Alternatively, sites like Replacementdocs provide a large repository of fan-made and official PDF manuals to download.

World of Warcraft and Guild Wars include instruction manuals that are 150 to 200 pages; they explain everything from in-game lore to detailed overviews of the different character classes.

In general, MMORPGs have a larger variety of features in which the player can focus on while playing than normal games and often take much longer to semi-complete (usually defined as reaching the highest-possible character level: due to the nature of MMORPG games, with constant content additions, etc., requiring many hours of weekly play in order to stay competitive in-game, it is impossible to ever "complete", "finish" or "beat" one in the traditional sense one can complete a game like Final Fantasy X or Rome: Total War).

More than any other genre, the community and longevity of an MMO are important to the developers because they often charge a monthly fee for playing the game.