When it comes to booklets , the game that sticks out to me is an Amiga title Hired Guns, from lemmings creators DMA designs who became Rockstar North , it came with 4 booklets that included a short story, comprehensive character bios a general history etc , at the time tabletop roleplaying was expanding to include numerous genres beyond D&D style fantasy, and some of the sci fi ones came with great book intros that really fleshed out the world or worlds, where your role playing scenarios occurred, so giving you a real sense of being immersed in a living breathing place , and that's what I got from Hired Guns booklets,to get that today you usually have to pay extra in the form of limited edition's like the excellent diary in the Halo Reach LE .

Last month I got soul calibur 6, opened it and there was nothing. I looked at my cousin and we both talked about what a neat thing it was to buy a new game and read the manual and watch the ilustrations and stuff, even if they weren't in color

Very much so.

Nope. I don't even have a single physical copy game on my PS4. Except assassins creed I think which is the first and only used game I bought. Think it was unity. I hardly even know what a PS4 game case looks like.

I still have yet to see what digital brings as an advantage other than save you from the perils of having to drive yourself to the store...but I will agree that getting an empty box with a card dramatically reduces collector's value and the value of the game package as a whole. Since I already own physical copies of Skyrim for 360 and PS4 I will probably go digital on the Switch version though....dont want to drive to the store...and it's on sale right now lol

This is the same feeling I get Everytime I open a Switch game mostly. 

I remember back in the NES days, while all games had manuals, some were kind of crappy and some were awesome. Like the original Zelda game came with both a manual describing the story and also a map of most of the world and some possible hints for the beginning of the game if you needed it. All of these inserts are there to get you excited about the game and immersed in the game world. And also the games with the crappy manuals were kind of an indication that you were going to play a crappy game, because the devs didn't really care.

Now it's like none of them really care. PS4 games put in a token slip of paper that basically means nothing and Switch games don't even have that. I know all of this is to save on costs, but they've forgotten that their real job is to entertain the people playing their games. Instead they want to squeeze out every cent.

I own almost 200 booklets

What I miss more than the booklets is the ritual of going to the store to see what new games were available, reading the back of the boxes, and making purchase decisions on the spot. Now I know everything coming several months or more before launch. I read reviews to determine what I want to buy. The backs of boxes show nothing, most of the time.

In reality, I know that the current way is better. Still, I long for the days of popping in a cartridge and knowing little of what I was about to play.

Wow this is such a good post that it could be a thread in itself. Back in the 90s I had 3 diff mag subscriptions EGM, GamePro, and Informer. But I used to love to go to EB while my mom was in the mall and I would spend an hour or more sometimes doing just that scouting the back of the cases in order to decide what game to purchase. Magical times...