Recently, we tidied some cabinets around the house and found a bunch of old DVDs. Most of them were titles that sounded like shitty mobile games nowadays, and about a hundred Tycoon games, but among the pile I found a few that I’d still buy today! Jackpot, free stuff for me! So I go to install one of my “new” games, and after some tinkering with DVD driver updates and installation directories, I was ready to play. Then the program tells me to run the game as administrator. Fine, I am the administrator of the computer, no probl- oh, it’s not doing anything. I google the issue, and turns out? On Windows 10 and later, it’s literally impossible to run the game from the DVD. If you want to play it, you’ll need to get a Steam copy of the game either by just buying it again via Steam, or submitting a ticket with proof that you own the game, which might give you a chance of receiving a digital copy from the company.
Is 17 years really already enough time for a videogame to ‘die’? Of course, it’s not always worth it to spend time and money updating an old game when you have newer, more popular games. But I do think it’s a little lazy to say “just buy the digital version” when there are no benefits to that for anyone except the company. I briefly discussed this in my post about Nintendo, which is one of the biggest culprits of such ‘artificial expiry’. Cutting off old services, then making people pay again to play the exact same game without any support, fixes or updates? Sounds good, I’m in!
This got me thinking – when does a digital media product ‘expire’? When should we update, and when is it better to just make something new? Can the old and the new not live side by side? Companies know that they can resell a modernised version of the same thing, so are they taking advantage of this?
What’s a good time to update something?
How long should we use a current version, update, edition etc. before moving on to the next? It really seems to vary per sector, but our patience seems to be becoming shorter than our attention spans. As soon as something new is released, the masses immediately start speculating about the next even newer thing. Music, games, films and series, everything seems to require a yearly release or more to stay relevant. Is it good for us to wait a few years between new software versions, or do new releases keep it exciting? I find myself amazed by how often new things come out when I haven’t even processed the previous ‘new thing’ yet, whereas others are wondering why it’s been two months without something fresh.
Coexistence of the old and the new
Companies seem to be struggling with how to balance the core of their product/brand with new additions. Take Instagram, which, in its quest for renewed relevance, seems to have forgotten that it’s a photography platform. Or even Minecraft, of which the latest update announcement sparked some discussion:
When do we stick to our roots, and when do we innovate? As digital media take on a bigger role in our lives, companies cater to an increasingly wide audience and have to keep pushing out content to stay relevant. Naturally, releasing the “25 new characters and a million new maps” update will always generate more excitement and media coverage than the “uhhh we fixed a lot of bugs and the hitboxes are now more accurate” kind of update, but compromising on quality will be detrimental to the lifespan of our digital products. We’re already throwing away media that came out only a few years ago, regardless of demand, simply because newer and shinier things are on the market now. It’s quite a shame that many of these great things will start collecting dust so soon, but it’s also always exciting to see what we can do with our modern technology. I’m very torn!
In contrast to my previous blog topics, I don’t have a strong viewpoint on this, but it could be worth discussing how this type of innovation could take place. So, let me know if you have any opinions on this! I’d love to hear what everyone else’s perception of media expiry and new releases!
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