• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Why don't people look after their game cases?

i take good care of them, especially for the games that I like a lot. The ones that I took the best care are not gonna be lent to anyone unless I know for certain they will take the same care of them, which basically is no one in my circle :p.
 
Takes up too much space. I live in an apartment, I had to get rid of stuff while moving, nobody was looking at them, it just made sense.
 
I don't understand what people do to the cases to have then end up in such poor condition. Are the cases not just sitting in one spot for the majority of the time, are they being used as improvised frisbees to play fetch with their multiple dogs, do they keep the cases in a box in a swamp and have to trek through it ever time they want to play something different? Not a damn clue. I bought a few unused blu-ray cases to replace some of the cases that came with any used PS3 games I purchase.
 
CEX is inevitably going to have games in crap condition. That said on the topic of terribly 'looked after' game I'm always surprised to see games get in such bad condition in the first place, it's like you take the disc out of the case and put it into the console and do the reverse when you're done with it, how the hell does the case end up getting in such terrible condition?!
 
I don't get it either my friend.

But people all live a little differently.

All my cases are pretty much in great condition, even all the way back to PS2.

Only a few of my PS1 cases are not great condition, lots of little scratches, and unfortunately a couple of jewel cases cracked :(

Most of them are good though, Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross, Gran Turismo 2, etc.... :)
 
I remember loaning Soul Blade(Edge) on PS1 to a friend. I go to his house 2 months later to get it back. There were scratches on the disc, the manual was missing pages, and there was a rubber band holding the case together because he somehow broke it in two. The rage I felt inside. We never talked after that.

Well ps1 had those shitty clear plastic cases that would break at hinges but the other stuff....
 
As evidenced by this thread, lots of people just don't care or find value in them. Personally, I love them, and keep them in excellent condition, (a) because I paid for them and care about my possessions, and (b) they help games hold resale value more than a damaged/nonexistent one.

Nothing burns me more than when a company or someone ships an LE or any fragile cardboard box game (like SNES/GBA) in a padded mailer. Most of the time, they arrive damaged. :( Guess they figure I'm one of those "don't care" folks.

Sort of on-topic, but I recently bought a used game from Gamefly, and not only was the game disc in near-pristine condition, but they shipped the game box and the accompanying inserts which were pretty much brand-new! I was expecting just the disc (like you get when you rent from them), but I was very pleasantly surprised when I received it.
 
I open my games but I keep them inside the original cellophane

Yyg9oXcl.jpg
 
I open my games but I keep them inside the original cellophane

Yyg9oXcl.jpg
That's pretty hardcore! Although I do admit that if somebody would let me borrow a game or movie, and it was new, I would use a razor to open it carefully, play/watch whatever it was, and put it back in the shrinkwrap. LOL My friends used to joke that they would get things back from me in better condition than it was originally... which is really how you should take care of other people's stuff. :)
 
Totally agree with you OP, I don't understand this behaviour as well. Even as a little kid I've always asked myself when borrowing a game from a friend or lending it from the video store what fuckheads are handling the boxes like shit so that they looking like ass.

I'll treat my game boxes carefully and just do like you said: take it from shelve, open the box, take the disc, close the box, put it back on shelve. End of story.

That's why I most of the time pass on second hand games. Sometimes if the disc is still in mint condition, but the box is shit, I try to get some cheap shit game just for the box so that I can replace the shitty box of the second hand game with the new box :P
 
Totally agree with you OP, I don't understand this behaviour as well. Even as a little kid I've always asked myself when borrowing a game from a friend or lending it from the video store what fuckheads are handling the boxes like shit so that they looking like ass.

I'll treat my game boxes carefully and just do like you said: take it from shelve, open the box, take the disc, close the box, put it back on shelve. End of story.

That's why I most of the time pass on second hand games. Sometimes if the disc is still in mint condition, but the box is shit, I try to get some cheap shit game just for the box so that I can replace the shitty box of the second hand game with the new box :P

I know a lot of people in this thread have said they don't care about boxes, but even then it doesn't make sense to me

I don't care about the boxes my cereal comes in, but by the time I'm done with them they don't look like they've gone though hell and back, they're not left in tatters and ruined

Even if you don't give a shit about game boxes, why does this mean you do stuff to them that leaves them bent, scratched and ripped?
 
I suppose the level of care correlates to the level of caring.

I don't set food on top of mine, but I don't hide them in a darkened, vacuum-sealed container either.
 
Isn't the point of a case to be protective? I've never given them a single thought. I look at a game case maybe once or twice in my entire ownership experience.

Disks are hassles, slow, and fragile; they are the best reason to go digital.

Discs are the only important aspect of a physical purchase. They're the best part - pop it in, game data available. No internet required.

The disc is far more important than the case, which just takes up space and is a very inefficient protector.
 
This is why I bought a shit load of Mel B fitness games from poundland for the fresh new PS3 cases.

Every time I get a 2nd hand PS3 game I just switch the contents into the new case and chuck Mel B in the bin haha.

PS3 was bad for game case OCD for sure. The clear top section would always be scratched to shit on second hand ps3 games. Glad they just went for a standard box for PS4.
 
I don't know. I don't really give a shit about mine, and they still don't look like the gnarled used cases you can find in a Gamestop.
 
Those PS1 CD cases were so cheap, I'm not surprised they would end up in the condition they were in. SNES boxes were great but man it could be tough to keep them in good condition at times. I remember I sold mine off and got plastic cases for them. Dunno why people don't take better care of them, I usually do but since I buy used games a lot, I learned to stop caring.
 
It's not like you have actively do anything with them to keep them from getting destroyed, but some people just ruin everything they own, games or otherwise, and treat everything like piles of dirty laundry that aren't even in a hamper.
 
For me there's usually either a case in good condition or no case at all. I rarely see there be a case but it being in shit condition. I've seen a couple "I jacked off to this cover" cases but that's about it.

Oh, but I got my copy of F-Zero GX on Amazon. Between lying about there being a manual, a case in "WHAT THE HELL?" condition, and it being a complete miracle the disc worked with no problems my response was just, "...Good condition my fucking ass." For comparison my imported used copy of Dragon Quest Monsters 2 3DS was in like-new condition. Only ways to tell it was used were the lack of shrinkwrap and the save file on the cart. My Japanese XD wasn't much worse, just some minor wear and tear on the cardboard slip cover thing for the case.

Although, one of my bros just tosses all his games either in a crate or in random spots in his room and sometimes genuinely has no idea what case a game is in... Oh god I sure hope that isn't a common thing........
 
Putting games in a case and then putting the cases away takes effort and some people are lazy as fuck. Most RL people I've visited who had CD-based game consoles just kept the naked disks in a stack near or on top of the console and they just shuffled through them like cards to get the game they wanted. No wonder they are scratched to hell.

When I was young, during the NES era, I was able to get most of my friends to give me their NES game boxes instead of throwing them out and I would put them on my wall. I kept them and now that I am a collector I bought all these games used and already had boxes for them.
 
Responses like these (and what I see anecdotal) are why I think the general public will ultimately accept an all-digital future. Sometimes people talk about how they want to get the game in a nice box, but most people don't give a shit about boxes. Most people don't even really give a shit about discs. They just care about the content on the discs. Digital is what offers you only the part you care about -- the game.

The only reason some people might care about a disc is because they can trade it in, and that maybe they don't trust Sony's or Microsoft's digital policies.

On the flipside, maybe it's just me, but I don't really see the same carelessness in regards to movies, music, or books. Well people don't really buy music in physical media anymore, and I guess it makes sense that people would take care of books because the physical book IS the content. I don't really see people routinely throw away movie boxes or anything like that though.

Edit: Looking back, I realize I take care of my discs and cases mainly because my parents were on me about that shit when I was little. Understandable since they were the ones paying for them. Shit my mom even went out of her way to buy me those third party clear cases for N64 carts, which I didn't even know about beforehand. Shit, my parents used to get pissed at me if I even left a game cart or disc inside the console when not playing it. They legit thought it would ruing the game or something, and they don't even play video games.
 
Yea, every time I'm at my local game shop I just stare into a sea of nasty looking cartridges. I'll never understand how some carts look like they were laying on the entrance floor at a Walmart on black Friday. Like, how the hell do you get deep scratches all over the cart, yellow stains, labels torn off? It's weird.

I've passed on many games because of that. Some of it is just how you were raised. Luckily my NES games from when I was six years old are in better shape than carts that were adult owned haha.
 
I stopped buying used games for the most part because of this. I can at least understand if it's a game aimed partially or predominantly at children, who don't really have a concept of taking care of stuff they don't care about. But once I got a copy of Condemned 2: Bloodshot that had just the nastiest manual ever, like someone rubbed cheetos dust all over it and then left it to marinate in root beer or something. Why the store even bothered to leave the manual in, I have no idea.

It's especially weird in light of used CDs, which in my experience tend to be in much better condition for some reason. So it's not like there's a universal condition where people just trash the shit out of their stuff for no reason, it's mostly just video games.
 
Those PS1 CD cases were so cheap, I'm not surprised they would end up in the condition they were in. SNES boxes were great but man it could be tough to keep them in good condition at times. I remember I sold mine off and got plastic cases for them. Dunno why people don't take better care of them, I usually do but since I buy used games a lot, I learned to stop caring.

Jewel cases have always been horrible.
 
Top Bottom