I was just doing some re-organizing and realized how much more cds I was able to fit on a shelf compared to my games and dvds. What made larger cases for games and dvds become to the standard when it seems like all the info/disk could fit into a standard CD case?
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Video games, specially older ones, came with a manual or booklet, and that was hard to fit in the standard jewel case of the music CDs. In the case of DVDs, marketing and new standards for more reliable, sturdy cases made them go bigger.
For PC games, I also wish I could understand, since my box of Interestate 76 is the size of a calculus textbook, while my WH40K Dawn of War (the first one) was a bit bigger than a paperback. When I bought Bioshock, it already came in the standard DVD case.
Marketing trends are interesting and don’t always have solid reasons (sometimes things happen just because that’s what people did), but one of the benefits of DVD cases being larger was to make them more easily recognisable, particularly when DVDs were new. DVD cases are about the same size as VHS packaging, which helped both with storage, stocking, and consumer confusion (it being clearer, much quicker, that one thing is a video, the other is audio).
The more interesting question is why PC-DVDs used the larger casing. There I think it was a combination of marketing (“look, this is a DVD not a CD, so is better, so we can charge more”) and smaller total packaging; PC-CDs tended to come in the smaller cases, but inside larger boxes (where there was room for the manuals and other paperwork). With the larger DVD cases there was more room for paperwork inside the case, so no need for the larger box (making them easier to store, transport and display).
The DVD-style cases are also a bit more solid, and possibly cheaper and easier to assemble.
More space to put booklets and even accessories, more space to put box art. Music going from 12” records to tapes and CDs really sucked for putting art on the box. I think the fact they were cheaper to make just won out.
* Some of it had to do with the cost of the games versus the cost of the CD.
* Some games are much more expensive than CDs or other cheaper games and thus get packaged in larger, harder to conceal boxes to discourage them from getting shoplifted.
* It used to be the same with CDs when they first came out.
* They would come in these super long boxes that were mostly empty so that you couldn’t easily fit them in your pocket at the music store.
Games and DVDs’ cases were made to roughly match VHS tapes’ cases’ dimensions – rectangular – so that you could store them on the same shelves. It also allowed the movie companies to use the same box art on their DVD cases as on their VHS tape cases during the changeover period, so they didn’t have to change the box art much.
CDs’ cases, on the other hand, were made to be roughly square like vinyl record sleeves… partly because it was also just plain efficient given that both formats were perfectly circular disks… and again, so that minimal changes were needed to carry over the cover art.
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