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Provide Devs With Suggested DVD/Jewel Case Covers for Physical Backup

A topic by aCanuck created Nov 26, 2020 Views: 267 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 2

A thing I've been doing lately is backing up my favourite GoG games to DVD for placement in my physical games collection. I've only really been doing it because a fan-made website hosts many user-made DVD covers, and there are several games on Itch.io I'd love to do the same for, but I lack the skills to make display worthy labels

There should be a resource provided to game devs suggesting standardized format and layouts for providing customers with DVD, Bluray, or CD jewl case inserts and disk labels. Even if it doesn't result in every game getting labels, I'd love to have access myself to a standardized layout (possibly with suggested logos and information to be included on the cover) to at least TRY slapping it together myself

(+1)

That sounds like a nice idea, but I’m doubtful that many developers would put in the time and effort to put something like that together. (I’m still seeing uploaded screenshots in different resolution for the same game quite frequently…)

That being said, if you already had a template prepared you could pitch the idea to individual developers on itch. Maybe Star West of itch.io fame would be interested in collaborating with you on that.

At the very least 77 itch.io users are very into the idea of nice, standardized templates for developers and other artists to use - so I think the idea of developers uploading those print out covers as a “goodie” will find some traction.

I don't expect every dev, even most, would do it. But providing a standardized template for people to follow would make it much easier for them to do it just because the tools are there, and it would be possible for customers to use those same resources to make their own

Erm…. Hm! What I also tried to try to tell you in a roundabout way (and seemingly failed to express) was, that Star West made their template for a reason. That reason (presumably) not being that they had too much time on their hand but rather that they thought that developers publishing on itch.io were in need of help in that regard. To a degree that it warranted pouring an enormous amount of their personal time into writing an elaborate guide, in the hopes it would improve the situation.

So if you want there to be a template for something that’s not nearly as vitally important to the site, expecting the admins to provide it in the next few years would be unrealistic.

Please note that this isn’t because the admins are lazy - it is because they are overworked. One part of that reason are Mac users who buy a certain popular game for PC and afterwards complain about it not running on Mac natively and want their money back[*]. And since “money issues” come first, stuff like that puts a lot of other things (like developing the site - or “having a weekend”) on hold for the admins.

And that’s the reason why my suggestion would be to take creating that template yourself or find a skilled user who wants to collaborate with you on this. Otherwise, DVD cases might no longer be a thing when this suggestion finally gets their turn of being looked into.

[*] And this is just the visible tip of the far larger iceberg that’s mostly invisible to us as users.