this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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Man you would have had a field day with PC gaming in the 90's!
In fairness though, even though some did skimp out and just launch a CD in, most had a manual and something of lore interest or a physical anti-piracy thing, and a fair few were stuffed full of trinkets or other world building material... just because.
Even my Atari ST edition of Zak McKracken had the floppy, manual, passport anti-piracy card, and a faux-magazine which was both hilarious and acted as a hint book too.
PC games in he 90s were like cereal boxes filled with a few CDs and a the barest of a manual. In the 80s it was the same except it was floppy disks and the manual was needed to get through the copy protection. Sometimes you’d even get a decoder ring of some sorts to decode something for the copy protection.
Good times.
I remember the Kings Quest VI manual came with a red film thingy that you could use to read hints to avoid spoilers. Pretty rad.
Copy protection was a thing well into the 00s and early 2010s. Had to read the code on the manual to install.
Yeah but it wasn’t as fun as in the 80s and 90s when they’d be sending you on a treasure hunt through the manual to find specific words and letters like you were in the DaVinci Code.
PC game cases from 90s were amazing. I wish console games would do something cool like that. They were made of cardboard, typically had boxart with a bunch of high quality engraving, had manuals inside. They felt like collectibles and you didn’t have to pay extra for any of it. It was just part of the base game price.
Never got into PC gaming, but a friend convinced me to buy half life counter strike in high school. It was a chunker of a case.
I've got a Depths of Doom Trilogy box set in the attic. Damn thing was enormous.
Now you're talking my language!
Brilliant set that was, as was Quake: The Offering, Quake II Quad Damage, and the id Anthology. Absolute beasts of boxes!