The CD's superiority over cassette tapes was so obvious, that record companies didn't mind charging damn near twice as much for a CD as they did for a tape. Now, you might think I'm about to start slaming the costs of CDs, but actually that debate has been run into the ground. My current annoyance is a left over from a debate that, as far as the tree-hugging hippies are concerned, is long since over. The Box.

For those of you who are either too young to remember, too behind the times to have had a CD player back then, or too far off in a third world country to ever have really cared, the pompus music corperations used to package CDs in large card-board boxes over a foot long and just a little wider than the CD jewl-case it's self. This box annoyed the environmentalist partially because it was using up paper and thus cutting down the precious firewood we call Oxygen Producers (aka Trees to the humanoids out there), but mostly because it was a damn good way for the tree huggers to further assult megacorperations and gain them much negative press.

Unfortunately for the hippy bastards, the suits of course realized that these boxes cost money and decided to ditch them. The logic went something like this. "Since store owners can no longer display the CD's large, highly visible cardboard box to customers, we can now sell them more posters, promotional displays, and other such materials to help them pawn whatever's trendy off on the easily manipulated shopper."

The hippies got the box banned, CD's took up less shelf space so merchants could carry a wider variety and keep more in stock, and record lables started making life-sized cardboard standups of Tanya Tucker and Modonna (or whoever else was sexy at the time) for store owners to display in windows. One could say that just about everybody won.

Except the computer users. As the buzz over the box died down and the tree-huggers found other corperations to pound down the doors of, the software industry was slowly growing in size.

Once upon a time software shipped in a folded cardboard envelope into which a few floppy disks had been inserted. Then games started shipping on 3.5 inch disks, or several 5.25 inch disks, and as a result the envelopes no longer were thick enough to hold the disks, much less the instruction manuals and tons of registration forms, catalogs, advertisements, promotional stickers and mini-posters, code-wheels, 3d Glasses, or just about anything else software companies could think of to package with the only thing you really cared about... the disks.

The boxes got thicker...

And thicker...

And thicker...

Then one day the shit climbed down off of the mountain. Sierra released Kings Quest V. From that moment on the software industry was at war to see who could fill the most disk space. With this space, of course, came the need for more storage capacity. CD-ROMs were the obvious answer, but seeing as how the PC's major acceptance of the CD-ROM was still a short distance off, this was giving PC software companies time to establish regular business practices.

One of those being large, flashy, sturdy boxes. The boxes had to be glossy cardboard, because flat was just a sure sign of an inferior software product. The box also had to be nice a firm as not to get slightly dented in shipping. Customers wouldn't buy even the most critically acclaimed title if the box had so much as a crushed corner. Other wasteful ideas began to pop up as well, such as fold out fronts to allow them to print more screen shots and propaganda onto the package. Games went from being shipped in a single fold of cardboard to a container that used more paper than the manuals normally tucked inside. Though they still manage to include some rather thick catalogs, make no mistake about that.

So why am I bitching? Once upon a time, it was normal for people to keep the package that software came in. For years I still had the original boxes to Defender of the Crown, Marble Madness, and Starflight I. Bards Tale I, II, and III, The Three Stooges, Cannon Fodder, Lemmings ...and up. Sure, I had to get a book shelf to keep them all in. My collection of game boxes was starting to look larger than most people's personal library of books or video casettes.

As I got older and began to make more money and buy more software, I began to realize the collection of old boxes was starting to get to be a real pain in the ass. At first when then boxes where thinner, and there were less of them it didn't bother me so much to keep them. Now days, however, software is much more popular than it's ever been. And I KNOW most people can't be keeping these boxes. Only a real fucking anal retentive prick like me keeps software boxes. And not so long ago even I got tired of it.

So tired in fact, I started breaking the boxes down and folding them up for disposal. After all, I still had the disks and manuals, what did I really need the boxes for? The artwork I could now scan and save on a ZIP disk or CD, and any other nostalgic needs I may have once had I've long since outgrown. In reality, these boxes were just starting to annoy me and I was cleaning house.

In fact I cleaned SEVEN GARBAGE BAGS worth of boxes out. These are folded up, mind you. There is no easy cardboard recycling project in my area, otherwise I would have loved to turn this crap in for perhaps enough money to buy a new game.

But the terror isn't over. I'm still finding boxes for games that either I've forgotten I ever even owned, or I still have never had the chance to open and play. (I have a copy of Future Shock still in shrink wrap, and who the hell even remembers that game?!)

Why does the PC industry feel the need to pollute our minds and our landfills with this rubbish? There is absolutely no need for it! The music industry is doing just fine without cardboard boxes, and the Playstation market is proof that you don't need tons of cardboard around your product to clear it off the shelf. In fact, Playstation software is proof it doesn't even have to be good to sell! Much less packaged nicely!

I think the big guys such as GT Interactive, Electronic Arts, and Interplay should all take the initial steps to reduce packaging down to the bare essentials. I'm not saying they have to resort to just shipping games in a jewl, though that would be ideal. I just think that software companies should take some responsible action and reduce waste now. The software market is growing larger every day, and if the big guys don't start taking the steps to reduce waste soon, a bunch of smelly old men and women listening to 60's music and talking some shit about auras and Karma will be pushing them towards those steps later.

Just watch.

-Jace of Fuse!