Stealth tactics, buy several storage ottomans, don't say they're storage ottomans, equip with secret magnetic catch if possible... put one by front door "for putting your shoes on" one for waiting for the bathroom to be free, one so you can sit and look out the window....

Collectors buy empty boxes, manuals, and inserts all of the time. If you can't keep them, at least sell them. Do you own Nightmare Creatures, by chance? If so, I'm reserving it now!

You know, if it's really just about the software content and the WAF on the other hand, no sentimental attachment:
Not actual legal advice, but copyright issues don't really apply to games from the stone age in a private setting. So, if not keeping them, copy all the disk to a flash drive, put that flash drive in a jewel case, put that in a very large and rusty safe, sell the boxes.

(Maybe store the CDs as disk images so you'd be able to reapply them on CD-Rs if that's the only way to install them on old systems. You'd need backup anyway, CDs don't live forever.)
For anything before CD-ROM, google e.g. "Diskettenimages good old days" - I don't want to link to abondonware here, but there's a lot out there.

You could also apply a hybrid system and wait until someone buys one of the boxes at a fixed price which you set just a bit higher than you deemed borderline appropriate. Every time that happens you treat you spouse to dinner. Yes, there are games that will pull that kind of money.

Meatball wrote on 2022-02-27, 02:58:

Collectors buy empty boxes, manuals, and inserts all of the time. If you can't keep them, at least sell them.

This right here please. As someone who loves big boxes it always makes me a bit sad to see loose jewel cases for games I'm looking for, another box that got thrown out along the way.

Could use an empty Red Alert 2 box myself, mine's seen better days.

What attics are for

Sombrero wrote on 2022-02-27, 06:17:

As someone who loves big boxes it always makes me a bit sad to see loose jewel cases for games I'm looking for

Yep, that's a shame. Back then I didn't remotely have 139,95 for these things, Tie Fighter (floppy) being the only one I ever bought myself.
So, this is the only other big box I got for sentimental reasons, much later:

Meaning, if you really have to get rid of them, uhm, I'm up for Half-Life, UFO or DOOM, obviously 😀

Keep the those that bring you joy, discard the rest.

Big boxes are no longer made, but women are almost everywhere.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-02-27, 06:40:

Yep, that's a shame. Back then I didn't remotely have 139,95 for these things, Tie Fighter (floppy) being the only one I ever bo […]
Show full quote

Sombrero wrote on 2022-02-27, 06:17:

As someone who loves big boxes it always makes me a bit sad to see loose jewel cases for games I'm looking for

Yep, that's a shame. Back then I didn't remotely have 139,95 for these things, Tie Fighter (floppy) being the only one I ever bought myself.
So, this is the only other big box I got for sentimental reasons, much later:
100_0438.JPG

Meaning, if you really have to get rid of them, uhm, I'm up for Half-Life, UFO or DOOM, obviously 😀

Good picks, TIE Fighter and Master of Orion.

Very much in the same boat, I didn't even have a good gaming PC during the late 90's and none original boxed games, all pirate copies. The first big box game I bought was FreeSpace 2 sometime around 2008 or thereabouts when I by chance came across a new old stock copy. Still took another 10 years before I started collecting more of them for mostly sentimental reasons, kinda wish I hadn't taken that much time considering how ludicrously expensive some games got in the meantime 😐