Were Amiga big box games originally sealed?

[Timtheloon]

I noticed on eBay a seller selling Amiga games which are "supposedly" still sealed with a plastic cover I believe them to be fake especially on one where you can see wear on the edges of the box under the supposed seal.

If Im honest I don't remember big box games being sealed like this, but I was young and probably didn't pay attention to it.

Can anyone else remember if they were or not?

 

[Watson]

I don;t know about Amiga big box games , i can;t remember, but I remember the pc games i had purchased new late 90's early 2000 (sold them recently on Amibay ), were sealed in shrink wrap with the price stickers applied.

I guess if they had the original price stickers on or other promotional stickers then they might be legit, but if not i'd bet they have just been resealed to make more profit from them.

 

[davideo]

When I bought software it was always the empty box on display and then you'd take that to the counter and they'd search through a drawer for the bag of contents.

 

[miggymad]

Never saw any game boxes still in shrink wrap apart from the old Acornsoft stuff for the BBC Micro back in the 1980's.

Just as davideo says, most local stores had empty game boxes on the shelves and customers took them to the checkout to be filled with a ziploc bag of computer game goodies. Case in point, the UK Woolworth stores which not only kept video games behind the till in big drawers, but also vinyl records, CD's, DVD's, cassettes and video's.

 

[Aeberbach]

I worked in a software store in the early 90s. Software boxes were unsealed and we had to extract contents and file them before shrink-wrapping and then putting boxes on the shelves.

Of course some stores may have kept contents inside before the shrink-wrap was applied. Some software (especially business) came pre-wrapped.

 

[amifan]

Same here in the UK, I also used to work for software shop in the 90s, it was a case of opening up and then shrink-wrapping again, was a pain in the arse at times when we had a lot of stock coming in. Though that was for one of the larger software shops, it did vary with the smaller independent shops.

 

[Bliss]

we used to sell software too back in the day and i can also confirm that the amiga stuff that was boxed was not sealed. (in the uk at least)

 

[Templar]

Been in London in 1994, I bought four Amiga games from Virgin Megastores back then, all of them were sealed tight. James Pond 3 was one of them.

 

[ShambleS1980]

Woolworth never had the games sealed. they were emptied from the box and stored behind the counter.
But i do remember my big box pc bio-forge was sealed. although i cannot remember where i got that from.

 

[MiG]

Most of the stuff I bought from Special Reserve mail order in the UK came sealed, even if they packaged it terribly and it arrived squashed.

 

[Timtheloon]

I'm well happy with the response this querry has received and it seems to be there was a bit of both sealed and not sealed dependant on the company selling the games back in the day.

I agree with @Watson that the ones on eBay are probably resealed to try and get more of a profit but some could be legit.

But it's good to know that I wasn't wrong that you could of bought them unsealed.

 

[Amiga Forever]

Most of the stuff I bought from Special Reserve mail order in the UK came sealed, even if they packaged it terribly and it arrived squashed.

That had be WORSE FEARED for ANY RETRO Collector

 

[Harrison]

Most of the stuff I bought from Special Reserve mail order in the UK came sealed, even if they packaged it terribly and it arrived squashed.

That's true. I used to order a lot of games from SR and most were shrink wrapped. Thankfully not too many arrived squished. Miss that company. Bought my first A1200, CD32 and first new PC from them and still have it and it still works. And I used to have my broadband from them, and it's the only part of their company still running; Freeola and Getdotted.

But no in store boxes were ever sealed because the contents were always locked behind the counter because so many kids would steal them. But I wonder if they unsealed the games before display. With console games often stored would have funny boxes on display, but give you a different sealed copy when you took it up to the counter.

 

[Miru]

I only owned 2 new original games when I was a teenager, carrier command and powermonger. My grandfather gifted them to me. They too, were sealed and shrinkwrapped, I believe this was in Essen, Germany, in 1992 or so. Best way of telling if it was shrink wrapped by the seller is the edges being worn, I believe. I own a few still shrink wrapped games, one was Transarctica which was just sold.

 

[Vstech]

I worked for a big retail store Computer City, a RadioShack company from 93 to 95 and every game / software package on the shelf was sealed.
We would put sale stickers etc on the boxes when shipments came in, and returned software (I couldn’t believe stores accepted software returns back then!) would be re shrink wrapped in the back room.
I also shopped a LOT of computer stores before then, and some were sealed, some had a tape sticker on the box openings, some were unsealed.
I’d guess if company logo stickers are on the packaging, it’s legit, if not… I mean, shrink wrap and a heat gun fairly easy to do…

 

[davideo]

We had a dealer that started out as a RadioShack and changed it's name several times over the years.

It finished up being Models and Computers Plus and was my local store for games and electrical components.

They like most of our local dealers opened the boxes and stamped inside the box and even put labels on the floppies

 

[StrongARM]

I noticed on eBay a seller selling Amiga games which are "supposedly" still sealed with a plastic cover I believe them to be fake especially on one where you can see wear on the edges of the box under the supposed seal.

Could you specify some titles that are selled there?
Maybe someone (even me) can remember details on specific ones.

Thinking about "bigbox" games especially I've never seen them shrink-wrapped. Maybe except titles like "Biiing".

 

[Xanxi]

Of course they were sealed by plastic films. I bought about 35 new original games in the 90-95 era, mostly in computer or video game stores and i don't remember any of them not sealed. People would have stolen disks otherwise.

 

[Niezgodka]

I can't belive what I'm reading
New games were sold sealed, just like tapes and cds. With games, often they were "unsealed" to make backup.
I don't have many unsealed games in my collection, but here are two:

 

[Adve]

I don't remember amiga games to be sealed. But PC-DOS back in 90s were mostly sealed. X-COM Terror from The Deep is still waiting on the shelf unwrapped