GOG adds printable 'big box' packaging for five classic PC games
GOG now offers downloadable 3D models and printable templates to recreate big-box packaging for five classic PC games, reviving a piece of gaming history.
The "Printable Big Box" collection currently includes five games: Armikrog, Descent, Hitman: Codename 47, Myst, and Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. Players browsing those games on the GOG store will now see "3D Boxes" listed among the included "Goodies" before purchase.
Owners of those games on GOG can download a ZIP file containing an animated 3D object file in GLB format and flat printable templates in PDF, SVG, and Adobe Illustrator formats. These files enable what GOG describes as "a proper papercraft project for anyone who misses shelves full of PC game boxes." The 3D model animates to show the front flap of the box opening.
"Physical media doesn’t survive the way software can—boxes get lost, crushed, thrown out," GOG wrote in its announcement. "Scanning them, and letting you print your own, is preservation in a different shape: the same mission that keeps these games running on modern PCs, applied to the objects they used to come in."
The initiative turns the physical packaging of classic titles into a digital download, letting fans produce their own shelf-ready replicas at home while preserving the visual and tactile memory of big-box PC gaming, Ars Technica reports.