The Lost Art of Game Packaging...

(Quoted from Artful Gamer)

Our tacit attachment to in-box artifacts is thus something deeper than nostalgia for games that use the artifacts as active parts of the game. Artifacts don’t just draw players into the game world – they also draw the game world into the player’s life.

What I’m trying to say here is that whether a mass-market game is digital-download-only, or if the game is released as a trinket-packed collector’s edition, the options don’t matter anymore: in-box materials no longer mean anything because developers have forgotten their personal, meaningful, value. Developers no longer recognize the way that artifact and game constitute one another. They’re called “collector’s editions” for a reason – they’re made for people who like to collect things.

--- From the comments

[ L.B. Jeffries ]
I remember maps were always my favorite things to receive in old games. Quest for Glory 2 and Spirit of Excalibur both required you have the maps to play. Like you say, it generated a curious cross-over from the real and unreal because I could hold something that existed in both worlds.