The NPD Group has conducted a new study regarding the way customers approach buying and storing videogames. The study was commissioned by the Content Delivery and Storage Association and the Entertainment Merchants Association and shows that a lot of gamers, around 11%, have at least one game in the original packaging at home.

Also, the average video game collection now consists of no less than 48 titles in the United States. Out of those questioned, no less than 88% hang on to the original packaging their games arrived in and about 8% of gamers keep the game discs in plastic sleeves while not getting rid of the original cases. Only about 5% of gamers keep the disks and then recycle the packaging.

A title that has been played and re-played until no longer needed is in 54% of cases sold or traded in. 24% of players will just give the game away to a friend while 17% will store it and 2% will just throw it away. I suggest that donating the game to a videogame archive would be a far better option than throwing even a bad title away.

Bo Andersen, who is the president and Chief Executive Officer of EMA, says that “In packaged home entertainment, consumers view the packaging cases as part of the product and not something to be tossed. The cases provide product protection, allow easy title identification, and carry the artwork that is integral to the consumer’s association with the title”. Probably most of the unopened cases are Special or Collector's Editions of highly sought after games which will pop up on eBay in the coming years to bring incredible wealth to those who have restrained themselves from opening them. I myself will probably be scouring the Internet in a few years searching for a wrapped Collector's Edition of Baldur's Gate 2.