@coolboymew @Monadwill I was talking about back before digital distribution. Physical copies of PC games are dead everywhere outside of collector's editions and usually only indies bother with them.

Back when physical copies were still relevant, the big boxed games were usually sold in either higher-end stores like Target or electronic stores like Best Buy. Stores like Wal-Mart had a bunch of bargain-bin crap. Usually, they were full versions of WildTangent games, but if you were lucky, there will sometimes be a budget, jew-case only re-release of a AA or AAA game much like how Nintendo had their Player's Choice program.

Eventually, publishers decided to forgo big box PC games entirely and resorted to using standard DVD cases (or in EA's case big DVD cases) just like with console games. I guess they did it so stores like Wal-Mart would sell them at a much affordable price.

Looking back on it. This was all because PC gaming was always a niche market up until the release of Steam and it was not guaranteed that the game you purchased would work on your computer and stores would probably be bombarded by tech-illiterate parents demanding refunds. That also probably explains why these budget title games had both Windows and Mac OS binaries on the same disc. Hell, the first time I ever heard about Linux was from one of these games because it also had a Linux binary on the disc.

@coolboymew @Monadwill Well obviously I wasn't referring to the Incredible Machine in particular, but you said "PC games in stores are somewhat dead" so I thought you meant present tense.

@SteveTheDragon @Monadwill @coolboymew Pretty much every retail job is going to have customers and managers treat you like shit.