The Underrated Beauty of Game Disc Art 

This is the type of topic I'd expect Scott the Woz would've discuss. Awesome work

I really liked the digital/3D renders of the old disks in this video.

for me, the real lost art from older game generations that I really miss seeing are instruction booklets. whether it was a disc or cartridge game you could always have a great instruction booklet that came with the game and they were often fun too read, getting you hyped up for the game before you even get to play it. I really miss those being a thing and its a shame that modern games dont bother with them anymore. Remember when Metal Gear Solid 2 actually made a short manga for its instruction booklet? that was awesome.

CD art is like that person that you don't really know or think about until you start thinking about them in a different light

the smash brawl disc reminded me that brawl overall had an aesthetic that did NOT have to go so hard.

To me, the game disc of New Super Mario Bros. Wii was always iconic. Having the playable characters all underneath the hole was aesthetically pleasing to look at. Just found out the characters' colors are arranged in the same pattern as the Japanese/Pal Snes controller. That's super creative!!

Living in piracy central (Latin America xd) made it so difficult to find original games, so I always felt bad that my discs didn't have cool covers like the ones on magazines. One of my first pc games was the original starwars battlefront, that one of my uncle's friend got me from abroad, I loved opening the box just to see the disc art!

It's been 2 minutes and I love the Line delivery in this video.

The video got stuck for me at 5:50, which was honestly awesome as the loading wheeling just fit in with the center of the disc.

This was really amazing. Discard definitely is something I just don't ever think about but it is pretty cool to look back at it.

Movie disc art too. My favorite thing about having the two disc special edition Sam Raimi Spider-man films is that the first disc had spider-man on it and the second one had the villain of that movie paralleling it. Spider-man two is my personal favorite cuz it’s a close up of one of doc ocks arms the hole directly in the center.

I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FANBOYS OVER DISC ART THANK GOODNESS My favorite disc art is The Bouncer on PlayStation 2. It’s a CG render of the main protagonist, Sion Barzahd, throwing a punch with a smile on his face, against a deep purple background. Not only is it a treat to look at, it also does a really great job at visually telling you what the game is about. The box art does this just as well too, but I genuinely think the disc art is better.

I love how you started with showing the KH3 Disc and ended with the KH2 Disc.

One of my favourite disc art uses is the european version of Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, where the disc art is the lid of a medalion one of the characters, Alister Azimuth owns. Once you remove the disc from the box, the photo inside the medalion shows up in the disc tray. Heartwarming and creative.

I am honestly the one person who positively hates the fact that everything is going digital. Physical media is just the way to go. You can sell it, keep it on a shelf with collectibles. They can be collectibles. They're just so much better.

Gosh darn! Why is Kiro so good!?

I always thought I was weird for being kinda excited anytime I picked up a game on a disc to see what the disc art looked like. Glad to know I'm not the only one. Also, I get the same way over audio CDs and records. Sometimes they can have really cool designs printed on them to the point where I kinda look forward to taking one out of its case for the first time and admiring it!

I had a gamecube and a Wii growing up and they all had that 3 color disc. I was blown away when I saw skyward sword’s full color disc.

My favorite disc art of all time, and probably the disc that got me hooked into disc art is sonic and the secret rings. Idk if it’s the only cd out there that has a 3D like design on the cover, with a sandpaper like texture. But sonic and the secret rings for the Wii is by far the coolest CD I’ve ever seen in my life. The moment I first opened it and saw the CD and held it with my hand I knew that shit was cool. Most CD’s just have art. But sonic and the secret rings has a different type of physical texture to the CD wich makes the game all more unique 🔥🔥🔥

I remember the SSBB and NSMBW discs with a lot of nostalgia and memories

I grew up more with cartridges than with discs but my favorite one is definitely the smash bros brawl one, like you said the way they incorporated the logo into the disc was cool.

For anybody wondering what game he is using to show off the disc its called EmuVR

Bully Scholarship Edition for Wii has a crazy design. Remember it fondly when I was younger.

I love kingdom hearts disks, they are just so nostalgic and perfect

The “symmetry is an OCD thing” is a massive belittlement of what OCD really is, enjoyed the video regardless

4:46 actually, if you look closely inside the roulette wheel that Chop Chop Master Onion is holding you'll notice the letters RG and the number 99. So for example, this piece was drawn in 1999. This is what Rodney Greenblat commonly does to show what year his produced artwork came out and I think it helps compliment the disc just a little more

Pirated discs in my country had BEAUTIFUL xylography art.

I've never even considered this. glad this was recommended to me

Beautiful video man. Over the years I haven't even really thought about disc art even though it had such a big impact on my childhood. Music disc art was a beautiful thing too, especially if you had a cd player with a transparent top so you could see it spinning inside. It's just one of those layers of cleverness and attention to detail that really made you appreciate the love and effort that went into these projects.

The Legend of Dragoon and Final Fantasy VIII had some great disc art.

The amount of passion you put in this video, truly shows how much you appreciate the creative usage of art in any parts of media. I admire that! 🙏😌

There's a lot of beautiful disc art in japanese PS2 games aswell

Pac-Man World on the PS1 (not the Greatest Hits release) has the four main ghosts poking out from each corner, and I always thought that was fun.

This was such a good topic to cover and I loved your picks! The PS1 greatest hits titles used to bum me out as a kid for putting the disc art in a grey monochrome

Dang! You beat me to it! Nice work!

Even Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition uses the disc as a rim design and even looks like it's accelerating when spinning! The original game, the remix, and the PSP have different rims. Which I think is creative from Rockstar Games!

was not expecting to see persona 2 in a video like this, but nice video dude!

Of course I want to have something in common with the Sega Saturn. The Sega Saturn *looks* great!

The pause button on the android mobile RU-vid app fits perfectly into the disc holes (at least it did on mine when viewing it in landscape). That was very satisfying! 😁

Well, as long as the memories and the conservation of the retro style goes on for, the beauty of it all may never be lost

One of my favourite disc art is the ps1 re1 pal disc. That zombie's eye looked so sick to me as a kid.

0:07 I like ones like this that do something clever with their medium.

Which is why I love physicals.

I never paid much attention to disc art but Um Jammer Lammy is my new favorite thing Hey Arnold is another new favorite thing

such a great video, something i never really thought about but something that is becoming a lost art, especially w retro games where the only real option to play them is emulation. thx for the video :)

Oh this is awesome dude. I'm actually building a channel redesigning game art and cartridges. Great video man!

The Euro Gran Turismo 2 also had an amazing feature that you could SMELL the discs! If you scratched the disc with your fingernail, it would give off the smell of burning rubber! FIFA 2001 also had the feature but had the smell of freshly cut grass!

Fantastic video. You possess that rare quality of sounding funny without trying too hard. Subbed.

Silent Hill 3's CD soundtrack's art (it's tracklist) forms a whirling spiral when spinning. 😵‍💫 Silent Hill's always about the extra details.

I know this is about art in general. But they don't make discs like they did with the GameCube. They had this real nice texture on this disc that I haven't seen emulated on other consoles. It's a shame the English speaking side didn't get those full art pieces. But the discs are still some of the best in either version.

I see um jammer lammy in 2023, I click.

yeahhhhh TMS#FE disc my beloved. i love its whole swirly sparkly aesthetic for menus and stuff and having it on the disc was great

Tbh every time the virtual set comes on in your videos, I stare at the Ed Edd n' Eddy poster for most of it, since that show is my main hyperfixation rn Nice to see you're a fan of it too(though I assume not obsessed with it at the moment like I am)

I appreciate that you oppened this video by showing KH3's disc art with dummy thick Sora

You know how we still use a camera symbol for camera functions, and a floppy disc icon for saving? Little antiquated symbols for getting an idea across? Discs could end up the same way, maybe. Disc art could he made for a game, but it shows up when you boot said game, we currently have these boring pre-load splash images whenever you boot up a game on modern consoles, it would be far more interesting if you instead saw a mock game disc plop down into view and spin away until the game loads, similar to what happens on the wii when you view the disc channel and insert a disc.

3:14 that fucking got me

Game disk art was always something I liked looking at while on the way home, next to reading the manual included with the game I just purchased. Just seeing the colors used on the disk artwork always made me wish there was a full version of it that could've been included with the game in some capacity.

Great video, such an interesting topic I'd never seen covered before, just subscribed.

I like how the Wii U disc felt soft

It never occurred to me that the Metroid Prime discs were Morph Balls, and the Prime Trilogy disc was having the middle of the disc be Samus' arm cannon!

Never thought I’d find a relaxing and awesome video about art on a disc,it truly is beautiful

The best disc art is the Japanese Parappa and Um Jammer Lammy discs, they are so beautiful. The Parappa japanese disc is my pfp too.

This was a dope video on a unique topic that you don’t really see discussed that often!

3DO game discs were nicely designed and illustrated.

EmuVR is so cool I hope they let us do game cases someday soon. I love disc art as much as you do but boy it pains me to just leave them lying on tables and shelves.

6:12 Nothing beats a jelly filled donut

Another good example is the Megaman X7 disc where Axl’s forehead gem is the disc hole

Love these vids

Shout out to xenoblade 1, cuz that used the symbol display on the monado as the disc hole.

A lot of people talk about the game’s cover art, but nobody ever talks about the game’s CD cover art. Awesome job giving the disc’s some recognition.

This is a well put together video. I liked the VR disc segments

"Do you really want to have something in common with the Sega Saturn?" Yes. Saturn is goated.

I now have a disc tower and each game has a thin, round, plastic case and it really accentuates the art… at least, when I’m holding it in my hand.

The Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii was the best use of disc art I've seen. Using the signature sword design for the middle of the disc was genius.

I know that Taiko No Tatsujon had the Don's as the disc like Drum Master, or Wii 2

Sick gundam poster in the background

Dude! That Epic Yarn one takes me back!

Excellent présentation, this really made me think about doing more intelligent artwork for an album I’m working on. I think there’s still a place for physical media tho. Online services are becoming a hassle to purchase on and owning physical media is now more and more becoming the only way to retain the ability to possess something. Like Vinyle are still a thing I thing game disc art will prevail from this era :)

worship the product, live for the product, die for the product!

I love UJL and i'm so glad it was talked abt here, i don't think the art style gets enough credit. Also i never noticed that the US disc is a vinyl record, i always heard people get mad over how plain it looked and i was like "ok i guess it IS just a regular ol black disc"

5:13 I find it funny how you talk about the Gamecube’s disc art and how the bottom border ruins it and then there’s just Mario Strikers just going “lmao”

I got into collecting Japanese Original XBOX games because I really liked their etched look that seemed unique to most JP Xbox games. Like compare Fatal Frame II JP and US releases. Or Capcom vs SNK 2 EO. And then there's easter eggs like how every first printing of a Dead or Alive game in Japan had Kasumi featured on the cover, until Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 on the Xbox 360. That means it's something that they consciously stuck with on multiple consoles including the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360.

Pikmin 3’s Wii U release is my favourite disc ever. it’s so pretty

Never thought I'd hear the term "disc hole" so many times

i think this could also apply to music as well. take for example, both versions of fearless by taylor swift. the original version from '08 has the heart hands around the disc hole which was a nice touch. the taylor's version from 2021? disc 1 (the original 13 songs) is literally the same damn thing as the album art with the album's name iconography slapped on top of it with disc 1 in a smaller font below it. disc 2 (deluxe + vault songs) is even worse. it just the heart hands at the bottom of the disc with the album's iconography at the top of the disc slapped over a slightly cream colored bg.

With the new optical media now holding 10 tb, I hope physical media can now be stored and played on the disc itself. Rather than just installing the disc on the drive, still taking up space anyway. Basically making discs just glorified keys

They are underrated and unappreciated 😔

Finally someone brought it up. Wii has some solid disc art.

As a self-professed physical media supremacist, I can attest that disc art is not only underrated, but some of the major movie studios all but abandoned disc art over a decade ago.

hearing the words 'disc hole' so many times in a row has done something irreparable to my brain. excellent video tho, very much worth the damage to my cerebrum

The disc art with that hole between the girls legs

Awesome videos! 👍

I forget which game it was, but i remember having some game that had printed on the disc "for a truly terrifying image, flip disc over" and when you did you would just see your reflection.

Modnation racers for the ps3 actually used a car wheel on it's disc art. Honestly something like that would fit so well for mario kart as well

The Gamecube makes up for it with cute discs

7:01 bro is rapping about the half life disc

Yo japanese disc art for life

The Xenoblade disc art...THE XENOBLADE DISC ART!!!

I miss Um Jammer Lammy 😔

Finally, someone taking about disc art. My people~