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Lost Artifacts of Gaming

Blog written by Lou Lantos on June 27, 2008 at 03:30 AM | 2 Comments

Call me a purist, but I've always believed that the digital media age brings with it as many curses as it does blessings. It's no uncanny coincidence that we as people are heading steadily into an age where we have things handed to us; things are innovative when they can be delivered right into our laps with little or no effort on our part. We are now integrated into a generation who can have our groceries delivered, our albums downloaded, and our movie and game rentals posted to our doors; there is no longer an excuse to leave home. It's as if society would be just as happy for the world to be indoors than out, and with this push towards a digital age that makes all too much sense. Of course there would be an encouragement to stay inside, enjoying all of the fine electronics the numerous business's sell us. The longer we stay inside, the more dependent we become on them. It's a vicious consumer mind-fuck that is leading us into a colossal, psychological session of chasing our own tails. And it's all for the sake of having things faster, quicker, and with less effort, and what does that say about us when we would consider these factors evolutionary?

An even bigger argument, other than its reflection of us, is it's effect on the future. As we head into an age where things don't actually, physically exist; they're retained on computers, on web servers, on XBOX 360's and Playstation 3's, we lose touch with artifacts of our era. I am one of those consumers who loves to touch and feel what I've purchased. I will admire the box art, finger through the instruction manual, and enjoy the sense of physically owning the product I've purchased. I even love the idea of setting aside an hour or two to actually leave my house (strange idea that, right?), and go to my local video game store. But with a move towards digital media we will lose these privileges. Eventually video game stores will be phased out, unable to compete with the renewed and instant gratification of an online vendor who has no "stock levels" to study closely. This internet shopkeeper merely has one copy of the file which he replicates for every consumer to thrown down some bills, his/her stock levels are infinite.

It sounds more like a diatribe than an analysis, this article. But there's no way to take an objective viewpoint, as the benefits of the digital media age are also its downfalls; you're either someone who laments the idea or disagrees with it. I, personally, think that there's a subtle harmony involved with the interplay of digital media and physical media. If there is some way that both can exist, then I would be happier, but I know that eventually, like album sales, the purchase of physical gaming media will die a slow, unfortunate death. And with the tentative nature of storage media, unlike a physical games disc, older digital media will have to be deleted/removed to make way for the newer stuff, and thus more artifacts of a bygone gaming era will gradually disappear too.