Digital Demons

Today’s column concerns the ease of purchasing games over the internet, and the difficulty in visualising how much something costs in the bigger picture when detached from your own money. It is a critique of the digital age, the digitisation of money, and the suggestibility of the human mind. It is also a critique of myself, and my inability to grow a bloody backbone and to stop spending all my money on things I don’t need!

I’m a professional writer, a term which here means ‘unemployed’. My income is currently levelling off at about £0 per year, which means that any purchases I make need to be well thought out and utterly justifiable.


In the olden days that was easy. Shopping for games back before Amazon got big required you nipping down to the local branch of Electronics Boutique or, in my town at least, the ludicrously named Future Zone. The travel time was mostly spent arguing with yourself as to whether the game was worthwhile: you’d read the reviews in magazines, maybe played a demo if you were very lucky, all the while the little committee in your head is reviewing your options. There would invariably be times when, upon finally getting to the shop and holding the giant cardboard box in your hand, the committee would veto your purchase and you would leave only a bus fare poorer.


Then the mail order age arrived, and with it rose the danger. You would browse the internet on your clunky little modem, until you happened upon a website selling video games. They were cheap too, considerably less expensive than those charlatans in the shops. ‘How can they afford to do this?’ you would ask, before getting out your credit card and jumping at the opportunity.


The way mail order works, however, has managed to maintain a little of the shopping centre experience. Once your order is placed you are forced to wait while the warehouse gnomes find and pack and post your order, which gives the committee some time to audit your decision once again. In actuality, the committee prefers mail order, it actually provides extra time for deliberations and a reduced cost for failure. All committees relish those sorts of goalposts. Ultimately, they still have veto power, and all without ever having to talk to a real human being, perfect!


Then mail order became outdated and people started demanding convenience again. Oh, sure, it’s nice to have a discount on your purchases, but the delay caused by the physical need to post the goods became an annoyance, especially for hyped releases. The need to play a hotly desired game immediately would overrule the committee, letting them witter away in the dark while you spent your precious pounds to acquire it regardless of their assent.


Then digital distribution came along and solved that problem once and for all.


I love digital distribution. Being the shady, reclusive sort, going out into the light of the giant ball of fire and talking to other people makes things in my head go ‘ping!’, especially when those people work at the most successful branch of video game peddlers in the United Kingdom. When Steam came along and said to me ‘you never need to go outside again and you’ll still have the game come launch day’ I was sold.


What digital distribution has done, however, is take the part of you that bypasses the committee and ordered him to lock the door behind himself, forever immuring the mental bureaucrats in a little fleshy prison. I can be sitting at my desk on any day of the week and decide that I am bored, which therefore requires a new game to play (you can see why my mind needs committees now, yes?) which will invariably lead me to browsing the Steam catalogue. I’d find a game I want, notice the price in good old Yankee dollars, and think ‘what the hell? It’s cheaper than Amazon and yet delivered almost immediately!’. I’d spend the precious precious pounds via paypal and voilà, downloading would begin.


In the darkness, the committee are shouting.


Then Steam changes, they introduce localised currency. The prices sky-rocket back to retail prices, charging more than most shops do for the same product, but my brain doesn’t notice. They’ve hooked me with their convenience and I don’t even notice that I’m paying above the odds now.


In the darkness, the committee is screaming.


A screaming committee is a hard entity to ignore, even through the locked doors of the mind, and eventually you’ll be reminded of your mental guardians who would stop you from making spur-of-the-moment purchases all those years ago. Then you’ll remember the way out, the safety net of every daft and unthinking consumer, the return.


It used to be easy, you’d return the goods to their previous owners and you’d get your money back with no problem. Sure, the sense of embarrassment would weigh you down for a bit, but that would just teach you not to be such a dunce in the future. The ‘get out of debt free’ card that you can always rely on because, despite being embarrassing, it is quick and easy and mostly instant, even with mail order.


But what is there to return electronically? There’s no physical product you can show, no box to hand back, just money for megabytes. There are ways and means of course, due to the need for personal accounts with these services, but you’re getting dangerously close to tech support there. It requires emailing other people and hoping they have the technical know-how to reverse your transaction for no better reason than you were a fool. Unfortunately, by this point, your social skills are so atrophied that even a text based conversation with someone you don’t know is too much, too frightening, so you do what scared people do best in such situations and decide not to go through with it.


In the darkness, the committee is suffocating.


It’s not the fault of the various shops, of course, they are merely providing the market what it wants. Impulse buying is all well and good when you have the money to fund it, but I’m bordering on destitution here, and digital distribution makes it too easy to fall over the edge.


In truth, it’s always a friend’s fault. A good friend will know exactly what to say to push you into the right frame of mind for an impulse buy, and digital distribution is right there waiting, a smile on its face as you hand over everything you have like a financial lemming.


And in the darkness, the committee expires.