A new challenger approaches.
I don't think it's too takes to long see, when reading any of this blog, that I'm a fellow with a lot of neuroses, capable of winding themselves up into a tizzy over the smallest little infraction and stewing over it for the foreseeable future. It's just who I am, and yet it's a part of me that I try to struggle with when it comes to my turn to give criticism, or my fair appraisal of a situation and/or product, and that's because I'm always questioning whether I'm being equitable and talking sense or if the phantoms in my brain are playing tricks on me, conjuring up enemies where there are none. It's the reason why I bring up the expression "shouting at windmills" or a variation of that here and there on the blog, which is a variation of an old phrase "Tilting at Windmills", which is defined as "to attack invisible enemies". I don't know if the issues I bring up are recognised by any others out there, and sometimes I feel that even if they aren't that doesn't mean I shouldn't talk about them. Still, all the winding-up put perfectly aside, I'm so very glad when someone in the wild world of things shares my view. And honestly shocked when that person is Hideo Kojima.
Kojima is a fixture of the Twitter space and likes to use that as his platform out to the world in order to voice whatever random thoughts strike the labyrinth madhouse that lies behind those iconic glasses. To which I immediately have to say, 'Hey, nobodies perfect. At least he's not one of those weirdos who still uses Facebook! No offence if that's you'. It's not really a place I go often to drink from the font of one of my favourite living artists, as most of the time he just spends the day tweeting something innocuous about a movie that's coming out or a book he's reading. But now and then we see something interesting, and given just his station as an industry icon that can easily spark into a conversation, and I think it's a conversation that needs to be had before the opportunity passes us by. (Something which I feel is steadily and readily happening all the time.) Kojima shared his thoughts on our digital future.
Or at least, that's what I'm mostly sure he was talking about, as the English version of his Twitter account can be a little slippery on finer details at times, but I think we can count on our man Kojima to be on the level about this one. I say this because Kojima tweeted about how "Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative.", which assuming he's talking about the gaming market, he should probably know that software isn't 'owned' by the buyer now, it's only licenced. (Maybe he was casting a wider net and talking about 'data' in general) He then proposes, as I have a few times, that for whatever reason and by whatever party has the power to do it, access to that data (which we ostensibly own) could be "cut off". And again, he's right. It wasn't that long ago that I brought up the story of that Origin player who had his entire library of games, games that he had purchased, wiped from his account due to a spat with EA. Don't look at a situation like that as a one off thing that will never happen again, look at it as a warning of what might and will happen in the future.
Kojima further worries that people might be separated from media that they love, and clarifies that what he's talking about "Is not greed." (Honestly, I'm not even sure what he meant at the end there. I guessing that was lost in translation a little) This comes down to a conversation about the rights of the consumer and the distribution of art, something which hasn't really had any significant steps forward even as the digital age has come barrelling towards and past us at blinding speeds. Kojima is a lover of physical media, and I don't need to tell you how that sort of hobby is becoming endangered in the entertainment world as it is today. There's a special sort of love imbued in a physical thing, which is why I've never read a book or comic on a screen, I just can't connect in the same way. Plus, physical media is immune from all of this 'digital rights' conundrum which I can feel bumbling away unchecked.
I'm a bit more of a pessimist than Kojima, I see the approaching end of the physical age and I begrudgingly accept it with the understanding that somethings, once put in motion, can never be walked back or even compromised with. Yet even with that acceptance I can't help but think back fondly. I've always been a fan of buying the discs and cases of everything from games to movies, for practical reasons as well as sentimental. Practically it just makes sense that I can load up whatever I want to and play it without having to worry about if there's enough space on my hard-drive to fit it. (Of course, even that's no longer feasible with the way things are) There's also the transportation of games, sharing them, buying second hand, all things that fall to the wayside in the digital world. And for the sentimental, I like stacking my games up for my own aesthetic, having that bookshelf full of games was my thing. But that's the past now.
It's not as though I don't realise the benefits of the digital world, of course I do. Not having to worry about whether or not I've scratched a disc is a godsend, as well as being able to buy literally anygame you want to without having to worry about availability, (unless we're dealing with Nintendo, but's lets not talk about the headcases in their strategies department right now) and I think that once more stable Internet becomes a tad more widespread, game streaming is going to split open the marketplace like never before. Netflix and Amazon Luna both want to bring gaming to casual content streamers and if you think that gaming is more mainstream now than it was ten years ago, you just wait until that particular conundrum is cracked, the entertainment industry is going to completely turn on it's head. All this and more awaits a grand switch to digital, but what do we leave behind?
Gaming shops for one, as I chronicled in my recent eulogy blog, which might be seen as a necessary sacrifice on the road firmly out of niche-hood, as hobby stores become totally irrelevant, but I have some nice memories I'd like to hold onto. Nothing heartbreaking mind you, I know there's others out there who will lose a part of themselves when they lose their local gaming store, but I'm still left a tad crestfallen. We'll lose the certainty of a having a physical copy from which we will always be able to load and play our content. (Provided scratches aren't an issue.) We'll lose the space-filling of a collection, a way of personalising the real world so that a part of your hobby can touch your daily life. We'll also lose out on retro gaming, as online games libraries are retired and old gems start to fade from existence until the only way you can play them is to beg the licence holder for some overpriced rerelease. Do the benefits of a full digital future out-weigh those complications? Who knows.
Just like as some big Purple dude from Titan with a penchant for hardheaded stoicism, I preach balance in all things. I envision a world where developers still make room for disc drives and boxed versions of their games, not because it's perhaps the most profitable option, but simply because it maintains the artform is some tangible manner. But even as I say that I realise how hollow of a platitude that is, 'physical games' are just keys to unlock online versions nowdays and Microsoft didn't even bother to stick a disc hole in their Series S version, a pretty final way of letting everybody know where their interests lie. (Or rather: where they don't.) But at least now I know that when the physical side of this industrial drifts into dust whilst begging not to go, Hideo Kojima will be staring on in shocked horror right next to me. Not sure if that's a comforting thought, really. But its a thought.
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