A little late to the party, given this post is a few weeks old, but maybe they are rental stock, especially from before Blockbuster took over all the smaller chains/independents? I know some rental places would toss jewel cases in favor of the uniform, more rugged dvd-style cases because they would stack better with VHS/DVD and wouldn't shatter when excited kids knocked them off the shelves or stepped on them at home. They also eventually switched to those locking DVD cases to stop people from stealing the disks, the Blockbusters in town did this and would generally toss the non-locking cases and jewel cases.
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OP has watched Angry Video Game Nerd before.
You would think the first line of the post suggests that...