Why do games come in paper sleeves? Do the marketers have any idea how easy it is to lose one of these? And when I am scooping up a pile of paper from my too-cluttered desk, a sleeve with a game in it can get more easily lost in the folds of a folders than a true CD case.

Plus, these sleeves have no distinctive side art (like those heavy cardboard envelopes) so when they are on my shelf I have to leaf through a bunch to find the one I want. As I look at my game rack at the moment, I can identify Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, Pax Romana, Europa Universalis II and six other games to its right. But the game to left of Kohan is in a white envelope, so I have no clue what it is. (On closer inspection, it’s Dominions II).

On the other hand, I love the new DVD boxes. No cardboard box to recycle. To the left of my laptop I see Imperialism II, Dragoon and SpaceHoRSE. Well, at least SpaceHoRSE has something going for it. The DVD boxes are attractive, though they do take up a lot more space than traditional CD cases.

The decline of game packaging is as constant a subject of complaint as the decline in manuals. At least most manuals are being replaced by better in-game help and roll-over tooltips. There is great resistance, it would seem, to moving to superior forms of packaging like DVD boxes. The only possible explanation is cost of CD cases, but game companies are still (mostly) using boxes to stick the sleeves in and this is mostly wasted paper.