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April 19, 2018 11:54 AM

Two Guys Making New Sega CD Jewel Cases Are In An Accidental War "The cases didn’t stay shut, for example—there was no “click” that held the front cover in place when it was closed. If you tried to insert the piece of protective foam that originally came inside a Sega CD or a Saturn case, plus a manual and a disc, all those contents wouldn’t quite fit inside the case without the front bulging out. The problem that everyone seemed to bring up was that the black inner tray that held the discs sat loosely in the clear outer tray, and if you turned the case over, the tray would likely fall out."
posted by Servo5678 (23 comments total)

Whenever anyone brings up the subject of media/packaging, I always like to remind them about the monstrosity that is the Alien: Quadrilogy dvd set. Someone decided that this was an acceptable way to package things.
posted by Fizz at 12:10 PM on April 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fizz, that just looks like the packaging of most TV show seasons I've purchased on DVD.
posted by evilangela at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

Fizz, it could be worse, it could have been packaged like the Dexter blu-ray complete gift set.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:30 PM on April 19, 2018 [10 favorites]

Hey, I had the Alien: Quadrilogy DVD set. One day I left it laying flat and apparently it was hot enough to melt the glue a bit that held the plastic to the backing, so the seams weren't in place. That sucked a lot until I fixed it, also with heat. And then it sucked a little, like that packaging.

Whatever was wrong with that, it's still better than a bunch of DVDs put on a single spindle. Have fun getting the one you want!
posted by cardioid at 12:31 PM on April 19, 2018

So the dude selling Chinese cases still needs to sell more than his inital run just to break even (and now that he's reduced the price he'll have to sell even more). Like, even if Limited Run were the only game in town and were selling their cases at $10+, how many would they have to sell to break even on the $150k investment once all the middle-men take their cut? Are there really that many people willing to pay that kind of money to re-house their Sega CD games?

This whole thing boggles the mind.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2018

Yeah heads up if getting the older set of Newsradio on DVD bc it is just in fact a spindle
posted by griphus at 12:35 PM on April 19, 2018

I was recently ripping a complete set of Harry Potter Blu Rays for a friend who didn't understand what Blu Rays were when she bought them, and I was amused/annoyed to discover that they had literally repackaged the existing disc pressings with totally mismatched art. Including at least one disc that was labeled "Disc 1" even though it was the 6th movie and the set didn't include the special features discs.
posted by selfnoise at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I think my stargate ultimate collectors edition box set doesn't even have the decency to give every disk its own tray, they all slide into cardboard sleeves. Scratching the discs. Hrmph.

I mean, it is something like 54 disks and it doesn't take up a whole shelf but cripes, what do they think we do with media collections? Put them up in the china cabinets?

(no, we rip them to a digital library and hide the discs in the attic, mostly.)
posted by Kyol at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2018 [5 favorites]

Long cases suuuuuuuuuuck. Thankfully PAL Mega CD games were mostly distributed in quad jewel cases that are sturdy and have enough room for manuals. Plus, since they're standard (although most of them have just one holder out of four), you can replace them on the cheap.
However, it was a rough ride between the sturdy (although not perfect - some were likely to be deformed and bloat and/or never shut properly again) Sega Mega Drive cases and PlayStation 2 DVD cases. Sega released their Saturn cases in two flavours: two bits of plastic mounted on the cover (which relied on the freakin' quality seal to keep them closed, and that was not going to happen if the game had a thick manual AND the Portuguese manual as well) and later a proto-DVD case that was a pain to open and close and remove the disc, while Dreamcast and Playstation 1 had the same problem: non-standard jewel cases that were made with low-quality plastic (hinges and the teeth of the holders broke too easily). Nintendo was on flimsy cardboard until the Gamecube, which kinda made sense considering it was a fashion of the 80s and 90s to have the abomination that are cartridge organizers and dump the box (hey, Master System fans, here's a hack: you can use a regular cassette tape storage unit to store your games, since the sizes are around the same, only slightly thicker. Good luck with the labels, to).
Then everyone realised DVD cases were ok for 99% of the games, particularly since manuals were getting smaller and smaller.

But there's clearly a market for replacement cases. I've sold plenty of cheap PlayStation games for people replacing broken cases of their good games (although sometimes it was a problem to find one without translated label stickers) and bought a few Sonic 1 games just for the case. A few years later, was checking with another guy from a store if it was worth to see if we could make Mega Drive replacement cases and a universal Saturn case. I don't remember how that went, but the it's likely the scales of production priced us out.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:42 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

The absolute worst though is still just regular, bog-standard CD jewel cases. Itsy bitsy hinges made from the weakest, brittlest plastic ever to disgrace the face of the Earth. They were ubiquitous, inescapable, and inevitably broke almost immediately. There was a whole sub-industry selling better ones for you to rehome your CDs into, because the originals would be literal trash within a week of purchase. Baffling.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fizz, it could be worse, it could have been packaged like the Dexter blu-ray complete gift set.

Any packaging that makes it a complete pain-in-the-ass to access the last four seasons of Dexter is a perfect example of top-notch design, in my book.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2018 [22 favorites]

The PAL Dreamcast cases were hot garbage, standard jewel cases are the best thing ever compared to those.
I liked the sturdy 2nd generation PAL Saturn long cases, though, never had any issues.
posted by Bangaioh at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2018

I keep the last four seasons of Dexter in a thin tray that I stash right behind my air conditioner.
posted by stevil at 1:14 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I keep the last four seasons of Dexter in a thin tray that I stash right behind my air conditioner.

Showtime's got a set for you too!
posted by elsietheeel at 1:17 PM on April 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Someone decided that this was an acceptable way to package things.

actually it's perfect as it resembles the xenomorph's tail coming to skewer you in preparation for the hugging of your face
posted by poffin boffin at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

There is only one true Alien Quadrilogy set case. (and no spindles!)
posted by FatherDagon at 1:36 PM on April 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

i want one that rips out of my stomach and leaps into the dvd player so it's the last thing i see before i'm airlocked into space to save the rest of the crew
posted by poffin boffin at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

this is the sound of me gently rubbing two Panzer Dragoon Saga discs placed data faces together, separated only by a light smear of valve grinding compound: zreep! zreep! zreep! zreep!
posted by scruss at 1:43 PM on April 19, 2018 [8 favorites]

Yeah, I think my stargate ultimate collectors edition box set doesn't even have the decency to give every disk its own tray, they all slide into cardboard sleeves. Scratching the discs

Baldur’s Gate was like this. 5 discs, small HDs meant a lot of disc swapping, lots of forum reports of damaged discs from the cardboard.
posted by curious nu at 5:38 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have maybe 4-5 Saturn games lying around after the Saturn itself mysteriously vanished between moves. I'm still sorely tempted to buy a set of these replacement cases just to have something nice to rehouse my games into even given the very real possibility that I will never ever play any of them ever again.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2018

First the hilarious and mindbending fake game cavalcade that is @SegaCDGames, now this. What's the attraction? I have a theory.

Before the CD-ROM drive became a major Thing, floppy disks and game cartridges kept games firmly in the realms of single-digit to low two-digit megabytes. Then CD-ROMs happened. Suddenly, the limit shot up to three digits, four for multi-disc games. Digitized graphics, audio and even video became feasible. And without any precedent, anything seemed possible. Developers went NUTS. Without any boundaries, a lot of creative and just plain weird stuff got made during that time.

As for how you could access the fruits of the weird and wild multimedia kick of the 90's besides with a computer, electronics companies saw an opportunity to bring the capabilities of CD-ROMs to consoles. These fell into two categories. The standalone consoles, most famously the CD-i and the 3DO, tended to cost too much, a problem compounded by oversaturation of consoles. More successful were the add-ons to existing consoles - the TurboGrafx-CD and the Sega Genesis's Sega CD. The latter in particular was a window into the weird world of 90's CD games, where anything went.

It's not surprising that it's being remembered as a window to that weirdness - you didn't to meet need hardware specs to play them, just the console and add-on. And, of course, they're easier to run today via emulation than many old Windows games.
posted by BiggerJ at 7:20 PM on April 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Kyol I feel your pain. I love my SG1 boxset with the event horizon on the front of the box. It has a place of honour on shelf.

I have removed the DVDs to safe, less bad places. Worst still, no titles on the disc. To the find out insert for you!

In short, packages matter.
posted by right_then at 9:04 PM on April 19, 2018

Be glad not everything is a damn flip disc these days with anamorphic on one side and pan and scan on the other, like my original Ronin release. Or worse, the terrible transfer that was the original RoboCop DVD release. At least they managed to make Ronin look pretty decent despite only having 4.7GB for the video, a stereo PCM track and another 440ish kbps DD or DTS (I forget which) track. At the time, there was no such thing as a dual layer flip disc.

Some of the early MPEG2 Blu Ray releases on single layer discs were also terrible, especially when they stuffed it with every kind of audio track available. I didn't set out to know these things, but after I picked up a PS3 to use for learning how to program for Cell, I ended up using it to watch BluRays and play some games, too.

Sega CD's North American catalog was terrible. I should know, having played every release when I was "helping out" at the video game store around the way from my house. (I processed rental returns, restocked, and fixed computer shit in exchange for getting to borrow games for free and play the demo systems whenever I liked. Pretty sweet gig when you're a 13 year old gamer and computer geek)
posted by wierdo at 7:08 AM on April 20, 2018 [2 favorites]