Blog Banter: The Lost Artifacts of Gaming
Welcome, welcome to the 6th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
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 priviliges. 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.
Check out these other Blog Banter articles! Living Epic, Silvercublogger, Mahogany Finish, Video Game Sandwich, thoughts and rants, weblog.probablynot.com, XboxOZ360, Zath!, Delayed Responsibility, Gamer Unit, Hawty McBloggy, Triage Effect
Blog Banter: Just Give Me What I Paid For Already « Hawty McBloggy Invites You to Play on 21 Jun 2008 at 5:51 pm
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Blog Banter: Outside These Walls of Glittering Datagrams | Mahogany Finish on 21 Jun 2008 at 5:54 pm
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Blog Banter: Game Distribution - Digital vs Physical on 21 Jun 2008 at 6:13 pm
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Blog Banter: Digital Distribution - Loving and Hating it « Delayed Responsibility on 21 Jun 2008 at 9:08 pm
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Digital Distribution is it Right for Oz ? - Truth, Australia Can’t Handle the Truth! « XboxOZ360 - Weblog on 22 Jun 2008 at 12:11 am
[…] Blog Banter Articles on Digital Distribution #6: Living Epic - Silvercublogger - Mahogany Finish - Video Game Sandwich - thoughts and rants - weblog.probablynot.com - Zath! - Delayed Responsibility - Gamer Unit - Hawty […]
Blog Banter [#6] - =|?|Distribution Dilemma|?|= - « Silvercublogger on 22 Jun 2008 at 1:08 am
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Blog Banter: Hi, I’m Angela and I Like Boxes « Save in Progress on 02 Aug 2008 at 12:36 am
[…] out these other Blog Banter articles! Living Epic, Silvercublogger, Mahogany Finish, Video Game Sandwich, thoughts and rants, weblog.probablynot.com, XboxOZ360, Zath!, Delayed Responsibility, Gamer Unit, […]