Remember When Video Games Came In Big Boxes?

I most certainly do as I'm collecting them. For sharing my games with other (retro) gaming heads, I decided to turn all of the 855 boxes* filing up my NerdWall™ into shiny 3D!

All boxes can be zoomed and rotated and some can even be looked at from top and bottom angles. Also, double click/tap a box with a gatefold cover to pop it up.

The site is a one-man show and done in my spare time. I do try to keep it as up-to-date as possible but sometimes, well, life happens and the time from picking up a new box until it's available in 3D with all bells and whistles does vary quite a bit. I'm trying to keep you all posted via the blog though.

Anyway, I better stop babbeling and let you jump right in. Use the search in the top right corner or start with one of the games listed below.

Enjoy,
Benjamin

* Well, lots of boxes and some not so boxy ones

Latest Blog posts

2024-12-05 Epyx on Switch Just found out that all the Expy sports games are on Nintendo Switch as "The Epyx Games Sports Collection". Love it!
2024-11-22 Reworks Reworked the landing page of bigboxcollection.com; it's more colorful now & also matches the 3D box pages in style. Further, the 207 megapixel photo of my shelf is now accessible via the menu.
2024-11-21 Small Update Reworking the landing page and here's a preview of a stupid but fun little thingy soon to be unleashed:
2024-11-19 Old Shelf Render Here's an old render of my collection grabbed during the early days of bigboxcollection.com. According to Google Photos, it's from September 2015, which means 270ish boxes and thus ~1/3 of my current collection. Still like its look, so I guess I'm gonna re-implement this "shelf view" feature soon.
2024-11-14 7000 views Diablo, the first 3D box to have reached 7,000 views since the redesign of went live last November. The Doom Shareware box just had 6,666 views :-]
2024-11-13 Play Tetris, my Friends! "Tetris Forever" is out and it's fantastic! That said, let's quote Alexey Pajitnov: Play Tetris, my Friends!
2024-10-11 New Cab Couldn't resist, was on sale.
2024-10-02 Latest Pickup: Ultima and more Today, some more boxed games arrived.
2024-10-02 Latest Pickup: Cycles on Golden Disks Picked up some C64 games yesterday.
2024-09-13 Details Adding specular maps is work, but I'm still amazed how much they do actually add to the overall feel
579 more...

Just been looked up by other visitors

Recentrly added 3D boxes

Most viewed games

3D Box Controls

Rotate: drag with left mouse button or with one finger
Pan: drag with right mouse button or with two fingers
Zoom: mouse wheel or pinch
Open/close gatefold: double click or double tap

Press Talk

Cover of WebUser, Issue 503 Cover of Computer Shopper, Issue 391 Cover of PCPro, Issue 338 Cover of Pixel Addict, Issue 12 Cover of CustomPC, Issue 227 Cover of RetroGamer Magazine, Issue 247

There have been a couple of print and online articles about BigBoxCollection.com over the past years. Click the covers above or links below for diving into bits and interviews. Enjoy :-)

Multiplayer (01.2024)
Time Extension (12.2023)
Aftermath (12.2023)
GameSpark (12.2023)
PCGamesN (12.2023)
Adrenaline (12.2023)
Time Extension (11.2023)
PCGamer, Engadget & Co (05.2020)

Statistics

There's 855 games available in 3D on this site and piling them all up would result in a stack 30.44m high and with a volume of 1.33m³. When adding up all sides there's 94.58m² of boxart, not counting the 69 gatefolds available to explore on this site. Further, there's a total of 797 photos showing the games' contents.

I'm not done yet getting all the data in regard of media included, but with 716 boxes indexed, there's a total of 1,445 media. Here's a breakdown

564 × CD-ROM
478 × Floppy (3.5")
226 × Floppy (5.25")
85 × Tape
59 × DVD
18 × Audio CD
6 × Cartridge
4 × Flash Drive
3 × Download
1 × Vinyl
1 × VHS

In regard of fidelity, 488 out of the 855 boxes have all six sides scanned. I'm working on adding more but this comes down to finding the time needed for scanning and editing. There's also 69 boxes with a gatefold cover that can be flipped open by double-clicking the box. Also, 128 boxes do have specific textures for their reflectiveness. It's a subtl effect but IMHO worth all the work, just look at Morrowind or Beneath a Steel Sky.

Since the site's redesign on Nov 24 2023, the boxes have been viewed 279,635 times. That's a whooping 30 games per hour.

Photo of the NerdWall

Similar projects

After launching bigboxcollection.com back in June 2015, I have been in touch with like-minded folks willing to spent some time creating their own 3D Big Box Collections with either re-using or building upon my code and starting from scratch with their own vision. Either way, it's fun to exchange ideas with each other on how to improve our projects and to keep one another motivated in your quest to bring dustly ol' cardboard boxes to life.

Here's an overview over other 3D Box projects. Go, check them out:

NerdWall

A 207 megapixel panorama of the shelf behind me taken in October 2021. There's no real order to the games on the shelf, except grouping some series. Why? It keeps browsing fun, even for me when looking for a specific box. Further, bigger boxes (e.g. US releases) are in the top, while the standardized Euroboxes fit in perfectly in the lower rows. The wall is 3.6m x 2.28m x 0.2m (bottom row 0.4m) and — you've guessed it — it's all IKEA (Bestå)

Epyx on Switch

posted 2024-12-05 22:22:00

Just found out that all the Expy sports games are on Nintendo Switch as "The Epyx Games Sports Collection". Love it!

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Reworks

posted 2024-11-22 16:26:00

Reworked the landing page of bigboxcollection.com; it's more colorful now & also matches the 3D box pages in style. Further, the 207 megapixel photo of my shelf is now accessible via the menu.

Small Update

posted 2024-11-21 23:38:00

Reworking the landing page and here's a preview of a stupid but fun little thingy soon to be unleashed:

Old Shelf Render

posted 2024-11-19 22:21:00

Here's an old render of my collection grabbed during the early days of bigboxcollection.com. According to Google Photos, it's from September 2015, which means 270ish boxes and thus ~1/3 of my current collection.

Still like its look, so I guess I'm gonna re-implement this "shelf view" feature soon.

7000 views

posted 2024-11-14 21:46:00

Diablo, the first 3D box to have reached 7,000 views since the redesign of went live last November.

The Doom Shareware box just had 6,666 views :-]

Play Tetris, my Friends!

posted 2024-11-13 17:07:00

"Tetris Forever" is out and it's fantastic!

That said, let's quote Alexey Pajitnov:

Play Tetris, my Friends!

New Cab

posted 2024-10-11 16:06:00

Couldn't resist, was on sale.

Latest Pickup: Ultima and more

posted 2024-10-02 20:55:00

Today, some more boxed games arrived.

Latest Pickup: Cycles on Golden Disks

posted 2024-10-02 19:55:00

Picked up some C64 games yesterday.

Details

posted 2024-09-13 17:28:00

Adding specular maps is work, but I'm still amazed how much they do actually add to the overall feel

Pixels

posted 2024-09-11 21:22:56

In my second life as C64 graphician jmin I'm pixeling all kind of things for fun. Yesterday, I've submitted a pic for the currently running C64GFX.com Game Loading Screen Compo 2024 which celebrates the visuals shown while a game is loading. Rules are pretty loose, so game wise, everything goes.

The first thing that popped into my head was doing a MDK pic, and guess what, IMHO it turned out pretty neat, so here it is:

For those interested, the C64 file can be downloaded over at CSDb and you'll find some background info on jmin.at.

Latest Pickup: Caveman Ugh-Lympics

posted 2024-09-10 19:55:00

This one has been on my list for way to long. I fondly remember how my friends and I laughed our asses off playing Caveman Ugh-Lympics on the humble breadbin. Nothing beats a round of fire-making, smacking your oponent on the head when he's dying of laughter. Zoink!

Ninja Relaunched

posted 2024-09-10 19:55:00

Think, I'm skipping this one & grab a digital copy later on when on sale.

Don't get me wrong, I love those games & having a boxed collection on my shelf would rock, but feels like a cash grab labeled "classic video game preservation".

Gonna replay my RetroGamer/Wii/WiiU copies.

GEOS? GEOS!

posted 2024-09-02 19:46:30

Added a couple of C64 GEOS software "boxes" (well, they're books here in the German speaking world)

Latest Pickup: Another Diablo

posted 2024-08-28 17:44:00

Quite some time ago, Thomas shared a pic of his French Diablo box and boy, I fell in love with it.

Cut to almost two years later, I found a copy for cheap for my shelf.

Complete Set of Test Drive (US)

posted 2024-08-19 19:55:00

With the final puzzle piece added yesterday, my US set of all Test Drive games set is now complete \o/.

Latest Pickup: Test driving Super Cars

posted 2024-08-18 17:14:00

With this, my Test Drive II set is finally complete.

Hellish update

posted 2024-08-08 21:15:00

Getting updates for games is great, getting free upgrades is even better and getting remasters for free is ace. Thanks, id Software and Nightdive Studios for bringing Doom and Doom II up to speed.

Hi-tech tool

posted 2024-07-31 16:45:30

Some time ago, I've started to scan the back of the box with the top lid on and thus showing the both on the back scans. It definitely looks better in the 3D box, but it also a sucks having to edit the scans a bit more for fitting the rectagular shape.

Well, not anymore: low and behold, a new contraption for improving scans 1000% or more :-)

Milestone: 800 Games

posted 2024-07-31 16:41:30

With the upload of Space Quest 6, there's now 800(!) boxes available to click through on this site.

Enjoy!

Hi, Benjamin here

I'm a nerd living in Vienna, Austria and host of this site. You can get in touch with me via benjamin@bigboxcollection.com.

It all started back in 1988 on the humble C64 before moving on to DOS/Win with GameBoy, SNES, and N64 on the side, so to speak. I'm not only a gameer but also a collector, although I didn't set out to be one; I just kept all the games that I've bought over the years. Well, until 2005ish at least. That's when big box games got replaced with first smaller boxes and then later DVD cases until Steam and gog.com came around and we all went digital on PC.

However, back in 2012, I stumbled upon a new release for Commodore 64 called C64anabalt, and guess what?

It's a physical release! In a box! A (very) small one, but a box!

With finding C64anabalt, my love for boxed games was reigneted, and I began to track down all the games I had only owned as budget release, as well as all the classics that I had always wanted to play but never had the chance to. Classifieds and eBay offered almost everything for a few bucks, and soon enough, I had more games than I could keep track of.

To share my growing collection online with other retro gamers, I started taking photos of my games. Although it worked, managing multiple photo albums and a private spreadsheet with all the data became quite cumbersome and far from ideal. I realized that combining both elements was the way to go — building upon my spreadsheet and creating a website that would showcase a virtual copy of my NerdWall™.

Photo of the NerdWall

In 2015, I launched BigBoxCollection.com. Here, I host 3D models textured with high-resolution scans of my boxes, allowing visitors to click through and explore. The site has changed over the years staring with a more dark and gritty look before restarting with a clean one in May 2016. In 2023, I thought I'd add a dark theme but instead of just tweaking the CSS files, I've reimplemented the whole site, reworked mouse & touch controls and added features that I've always wanted to have but never found the time for like panning the 3D boxes as well as visualizing gatefolds.

Privacy statement

Purpose of the privacy policy

This privacy statement is for bigboxcollection.com, a site run by me, Benjamin Wimmer, and according to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), I have a duty to protect your personal data. In this statement, I outline which data is reached during the use of bigboxcollection.com, how it is collected, and also what I use this data for.

Data capture

Your data are collected by the following data processing operations.

Log data

Each time you access the website, the visit is recorded in a log file (server logs) for a period of 190 days with the following log data:

  • IP address of the enquirer
  • call method (GET, HEAD, PUT)
  • target address without HOST
  • minutes with version (e.g. HTTP/1.1)
  • name of the file retrieved and amount of data transferred
  • date and time of the retrieval
  • notification indicating whether the retrieval was successful
  • processing time of the request in microseconds
  • user agent used
  • SSL version used
  • referrer

This data is used for system security verification, error analysis and for statistical purposess.

Statistics

bigboxcollection.com counts how often a 3D box is viewed, from where the 3D box was accessed from and also tries to map those views to sessions. For this, the following data is processed:

  • 3D box accessed
  • IP address of the enquirer
  • user agent used
  • referrer

For mapping views to sessions, an anonymizised fingerprint is generated using a combination of the IP address and the user agent data. The fingerprint is generated using a one-way hash function with the given user data and other, internal data as input values. The provided input will always result in the same fixed length set of characters but it is impossible to determine what the original input was because the encryption algorithm only goes one way.

Adding other, internal data that's only known to bigboxcollection.com to the set of input data is done for forcing the result set's uniqueness, increasing its complexity and thus hightening the level of anonymization.

The fingerprint is used to clear the "Games, that have just been looked up"-panel on the starting page from the boxes that have been looked up during your current session and thus only show boxes from other sessions. Further, it is used to help spam detection.

The 3D box viewed, the provided referrer and the generated fingerprint are stored and used for internal statistics as well as for generating content for bigboxcollection.com, e.g. how often a box has been viewed so far and for generating the "Games, that have just been looked up"-panel.

Cookies

bigboxcollection.com does not use any cookies.

Data storage

To ensure the availability and reliability of bigboxcollection.com, I utilize the services of an external web hosting provider. This hosting provider securely stores and processes data associated with your interactions on the site. While I maintain responsibility for the data collected, certain technical aspects of data storage and server management are outsourced to the hosting provider. I have chosen a reputable hosting service committed to data security and privacy, and contractual agreements are in place to ensure compliance with relevant data protection laws.

Other than that, there is no transfer of your data to any other third parties.

SSL encryption

To ensure the secure transmission of data between your device and bigboxcollection.com, I utilize SSL technology. SSL is a cryptographic protocol that provides a secure connection by encrypting the data exchanged between your web browser and bigboxcollection.com. This encryption safeguards your personal information, such as IP addresses and user agents, during the transmission process, enhancing the overall security of your interactions with our website.

By using SSL, I aim to protect your data from unauthorized access and ensure that your online experience on bigboxcollection.com is conducted in a secure environment.

Data subject rights

You have the right to information about data concerning yourself, as well as the right to have data rectified or deleted. You have a right to restrict or to object to data processing, as well as the right to transfer data.

If you consider that your rights are not being complied with or are not being ad-equately complied with, you have the possibility to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority.

Contact details

Benjamin Wimmer, Vienna, Austra
benjamin@bigboxcollection.com

Impressum

bigboxcollection.com is a private website run by

Benjamin Wimmer
Vienna, Austria

benjamin@bigboxcollection.com

Fight Club

What's the best looking box?

Sry, no such game found :-(
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