The move away from physical media felt like an inevitably for the games industry, but that didn't make it any less sad when that approach really began to bed in over the last ten years or so.
I know I'm not particularly willing to accept it just yet, and I always try to buy a hard copy of a game where one is available, if only to add one more coloured box to my already overly full shelving unit.
I'm clearly not the only one either, with the price for boxed older games going up significantly over the last few years for every console from the NES onwards, with consoles from the late-90s and early-2000s going through a full blown renaissance.
A level above that are the extremely unique and rare versions of games from across the generations. These can be anything from very limited releases to specific early disc copies, with their unusual nature capturing the imagination of collectors everywhere.
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Now, one game from 2005 is all over social media, thanks to a very specifically packaged version that sums up the contents within extremely well.
Rare 50 Cent: Bulletproof Comes With Real, Tiny Bulletproof Vest
Legendary American rapper 50 Cent might be busy making documentaries about the rise and fall of Sean Combs, better known to the world these days as Diddy, but one of his earliest forays into the video game market is drawing some attention online.
Over on Instagram, the official Complex page posted a close-up look of a copy of the near-mythical 50 Cent: Bulletproof on the original Xbox.
The very cool thing about this particular copy is that it comes with a tiny little bulletproof vest case warmer, that's just about the best way I've ever seen a game packaged.
If you've never seen it before, there's a pretty good reason for that, as this version was only used for promotional purposes, and never meant to be distributed.
As with all things, however, the internet has begun to distribute them.
And if you want to get your hands on a copy, it's not going to come cheap.
One listing on eBay in the United States went past $1,000 with relative ease, while the vest is currently available, also on Ebay, only without the game, for an eye watering $2000.
Now obviously, social media posts on huge profiles like Complex will likely make a decent difference to the short term price, but this little piece of gaming history won't come down significantly.
Topics: Retro Gaming