Category: 
The time of year has arrived where I am thinking about what to unload in the “stuff market”. This year I began to contemplate “How do I know what is Obsolete, Old School or Retro?” There are websites like about.com that can help you evaluate your old electronics, and collectibles some charge for the service. Your library will also have books which give the values of antiques which are updated every year, and that’s free. In a box, is the second Panasonic Home Theater System in as many years that has crapped out due to built in obsolescence. My cell does a camera’s job, the job of the landline phone, and the old laptop that I just packed. Those are going into the attic next to the Atari 2600.
The quality that inspires us to chuck some stuff and hoard others may tell us something about our individuality and character. As we jet faster towards the future with each passing day I imagine that like the crew on the Enterprise we will eventually become a “stuff-less” society. All of our important music, literature and movies will simply be known as our “data”. There may be more creative ways for our data to be presented such as the Data Ring, or even more imaginative jewels like a diamond pendant etched with keys to our personal storage. This bank of data will be a log of our lives from the first time we can read and interface until we terminate.
Presently we are defined by more organic means. What is it that motivates me to happily pack up the land line phone and recycle the telephone book and call that whole tradition obsolete without any recrimination? However every crack and nook in the house has a book in it, on it or holding it up. I shudder to think of a world without tangible books. But the thought of music and movies reduced to mere 101010’s doesn’t phase me at all. Why is it that some of us collect cards, and comics – which are also printed on paper, or lust after carefully packaged action figures? How will know what is indeed archaic or what will one day hold more than intrinsic value?
Video games seem to have a guaranteed place in the old school category. The sentimental value in addition to the fact that the machinery still works, keeps it alive. The games are still fun, and that is what keeps gaming ongoing and captivatingly retro. So the PS2 is staying, and so are the games. Even though they are taking up prime media-room real estate, shelf space. I can’t see myself letting them go. For another year. Certainly they are obsolete now – but looking over each box is a brief snapshot of the hours and hours of time invested in each experience. They represent the articles I’ve written and the cool PR people and Editors that I have met as a games journalist.
Two games that I’ve played recently also made me question what I expect from video games that have a long franchise history. Virtua Fighter 5 was very retro. It evoked a feeling of playing past games. It didn’t take the fighter game genre forward, it didn’t even measure up to the current competition much either. It was not the point. The same with Silent Hill : Homecoming it wasn’t fresh and different, it was, what it was. I felt a little melancholy and let down by both of these experiences. Even though they were fun, there is always that problem with nostalgia: nothing is ever the same.
I’m contemplating selling an antique folding bellows camera. It has sat in the attic long enough to be worth something – to a collector. But with the market soft, and online auction sales down, will we collectors become the next thing to be obsolete?
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