Welcome to the first installment of my blog, tentatively named Aesthetics and Spacecraft. Herein I intend to discuss a lot of things but with some heavy focus on gaming, philosophy, and community. Pretty broad, right? Maybe.



My interest in these subjects stems from a life filled with the corner stones of my discussion focus: playing a lot of games (often with others), and constant intellectual curiosity pertaining to the world around me. I have a BA in Philosophy and Religion where my specialization fell in the Philosophy side of things and I spent a lot of time working in the ethics field. I’m currently working but intend to return to school for a master’s degree in Business Administration. Hopefully my interests and educational background will lend themselves to some thought provoking articles!

I’m sure I could go on for several more paragraphs about just how charming I am, my delightful take on contemporary society, or the virtues of letting your sister date me, but I feel like it’s in the best interest of everyone for me to move right in to a topic that has struck me as not only important economically, but relevant in the current sociopolitical landscape.



“Going Green”



We hear this term a lot. It has become a buzzword used by companies and politicians to reinforce brand loyalty by appealing to our inherent desire to, you know, still have a planet to live on a few years from now. That’s all well and good from a marketing standpoint. But, with respect to what the idea seeks to accomplish, it’s a pretty great concept.



Reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?

Recycle materials in environmentally safe ways to preserve forests and reduce pollution?

Improve technologies in manufacturing to reduce waste?

Save those whales?



I’m sure there are dozens of other things that come to mind when Going Green is mentioned (like perhaps even www.goinggreen.com, which just so happens to be a great site). Ultimately it comes down to sustainable development. And keeping environmentally safe practices in mind is something businesses are doing more frequently than ever. The games industry is no different. Many companies are, directly and indirectly, making their business model reflect a Green attitude. But despite this rather obvious environmental benefit, there are economic stakes.



Major retailers across the world have seen a shift in the gaming products the carry over the last ten years. The console market, with its rather specific peripherals and potential used games market, has overshadowed PC gaming. There are many things that make consoles more appealing than PCs to retail stores. In my time working at a certain Big Box retailer I was taught to sell product replacement and product service plans. These were fairly inexpensive insurance policies but more often than not they were unnecessary as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have warranties on their products to varying degrees and and have, for the most part, tried to release their hardware as defect free as possible (supposedly that’s good business… who knew).



In addition to those monetary incentives for retailers to stock consoles you would do well to remember that there are console exclusives so one person may have multiple consoles to play games or content unavailable on others. This leads to the potential for double-dipping, buying the same game for two consoles, because of a feature rich release on one console several months after the initial release on another.



Some retailers, specifically the stores that do exclusively games, make more than ignorable amount of money from selling used games. They offer money to buy back used titles from gamers and then mark up the used copy a bit for resale. This isn’t inherently bad at all. It allows gamers who wouldn’t otherwise derive enjoyment from a game any longer to get some money towards something else. However, once the game has been returned, all money made from the sale of the used title goes directly to the retailer and not to the publisher or developers who helped bring the game to market. The very nature of PC gaming goes against this model of game sales. PC games come with some kind of serial key these days to register the product to a user. That way piracy is “averted” because once the key has been used the first time, it can no longer be used. And, without a key, another user can do little with a copy of the game. This takes the trade-in option off of the table for PC games which entails a lack of potential profit for used game sellers.



A service like Steam allows its users to purchase games through a client on their PCs without needing a store or a replacement plan or asinine questions. The speed at which a user is able to enjoy the content they pay for is limited only by their internet connection. And when you consider the range of products a retailer may carry you can’t help but see that Steam has a much larger selection of games from which to pick. A retailer focusing on the console market will never have the shelf space to offer as many titles, new and old, as a service like Steam.



This has led some retailers to make threats (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41746/Retail-threatens-Steam-ban) with regard to what they intend to carry in their stores. Steam has been a major force as a digital content provider and seems to be stepping on the toes (read: profits) of brick and mortar locations.



Wait, wait, Aesthetics. What the hell does that have to do with the environment?



I’ve been procrastinating on that point. I admit it. However, it’s really rather basic. Games don’t appear out of some mystical aether. While I feel that to be a shame, it means there are a number of things that have to physically happen for a game to reach a shelf. The manufacturing process consumes natural resources and money. The distribution process also consumes these things. Even disks themselves, if disposed of in conventional trash dumps, can release Bisphenol A when in contact with water (that probably sucks, by the way). All steps in the manufacturing and distribution chains consume resources and cause pollution.



Services such as Steam mitigate a lot of the potential for pollution and resource consumption by offering the same exact content you could expect from a boxed game on a shelf. It also provides it in an arguably more convenient way directly to the people who want it. And to top it off, the Steam client is free to use. Users are only required to use money when they wish to make a purchase. This is a sharp contrast to the implied costs of fuel and time when traveling to a retailer to browse a game selection that may not even arouse your purchase muscle.



Perhaps the real question here is this: Why does it matter?



It matters because, as we established quite early in this post, the majority of us have a desire to continue having a livable planet. While driving my car to pick up some new releases isn’t in itself going to instigate a dinosaur style extinction of human beings, given the choice to buy what I’d like with or without having to contribute to the ever growing problem of pollution and other forums of environmental damage I think it makes more sense to peruse the Steam sale this winter from the comfort of my room.



Besides, as I may or may not know from pending court cases, it’s not acceptable to shop in a store wearing as little as you can wear while shopping at home.