I was rearranging some media in my game room and I starting wondering what other collectors valued more for incomplete games: the cases/boxes, or the manuals?

NES and SNES are really the only systems I collect for that I don't care about having the boxes. It's cool if I come across boxed games in my searches, but honestly, it's not a big deal. I DO like to have the manuals, however. I usually find my NES and SNES carts lose, and later, if I come across them, I'll acquire manuals for them separately. I'd never do this for boxes though (unless they were virtually free).

I put my NES games into those black sleeves, and I put the manuals in with them. SNES manuals I keep together in a stack on a shelf under them.

With other incomplete games, however, I care more about the boxes/cases than the manuals. It's a no brainer for disc based media (who wants loose discs laying around), but pretty much every type of cartridge or card (post Atari generation) looks like crap on a shelf loose. It has a lot to do with the way they don't put the titles on the tops of the carts. Genesis carts are the exception, but Genesis cases are so abundant I wouldn't even consider collecting/displaying them loose. Nintendo definitely got cartridge and label design right for their first two consoles, I'll give 'em that.

There's also the issue of uniformity. All loose carts look the same displayed, whether they all have a manual or not. Having some games boxed and others not though means having mixed media on the shelf.