I think you could also mention that one of the reasons why new media are adopted is because the are convenient. People do not adopt new media for the sake of being new media but because the new media is easier to use than the old one. You have to remember that we have had plenty of media innovations but not all of them were succesful. For example Betamax even though it is superior never replaced VHS, the same with laser disc and we can even count Blue-ray here. Sure many people do buy Blue-ray and the are very prominent but they still never replaced DVD’s and they have to compete to certain extent with the rise of digital mediums and digital distribution. I think it is an excellent point that certain media do get the retro status and therefore their existence almost becomes culturally relevant even if their digital counterparts are more convenient. Another thing for you to consider that not all new innovations necessarily replace the old ones since the old mediums might have advantages that the new ones do not have. While I already established that most new media that is adopted by the large majority are easy to use and access in comparision of the older ones, but the old media can have other advantages such as superior quality or the fact that they are physical. I find it interesting that after years of being gone Vinyl LP’s made a comeback since they apparently have superior sound to their other counterparts digital or otherwise. In the same way I think we will have a hybrid approach to our media for the forseeable future for the simple fact that there are plenty of people that prefer physical mediums, humans are at their very nature physical creatures. Physical mediums will persist even if they are going to diminish in comparision to digital but only as long as their existence do not become to expensive to uphold even if there is willing audience for these mediums.
One thing I am curious about is what are you going to write about Video Games as a medium being digitizied? Video Games I feel are kind of a different beast than the other mediums and you have to consider there are many ways to play Video Games and all of them are very different from each other in different ways. Are you going to discuss Video Games in the context of consoles, handhelds, PC or mobile? All consoles and handhelds do offer the digital alternative to their physical ones yet as far as I know physical sales still trumps digital 5 to 1. You have to consider that all consoles and handhelds are by their very nature propietary meaning their software can only be accessed on a specific machine. PC on the other hand is almost exclusively becoming digital (with plenty of digital platforms to choose from such as Steam) and interestingly is one of the first mediums to do so but that has more to do with the rampant piracy than actual people wanting it that way. DRM is also very popular on PC because of the high risk of piracy, however in many cases the DRM is designed to be unobtrusive even though there are exceptions to that rule. Mobile on the other hand never had a physical medium to begin with. I’m not certain how you are going to tackle the Video Games transistion into digital mediums since they exisit on many very different mediums.
A very interesting read.
I think you could also mention that one of the reasons why new media are adopted is because the are convenient. People do not adopt new media for the sake of being new media but because the new media is easier to use than the old one. You have to remember that we have had plenty of media innovations but not all of them were succesful. For example Betamax even though it is superior never replaced VHS, the same with laser disc and we can even count Blue-ray here. Sure many people do buy Blue-ray and the are very prominent but they still never replaced DVD’s and they have to compete to certain extent with the rise of digital mediums and digital distribution. I think it is an excellent point that certain media do get the retro status and therefore their existence almost becomes culturally relevant even if their digital counterparts are more convenient. Another thing for you to consider that not all new innovations necessarily replace the old ones since the old mediums might have advantages that the new ones do not have. While I already established that most new media that is adopted by the large majority are easy to use and access in comparision of the older ones, but the old media can have other advantages such as superior quality or the fact that they are physical. I find it interesting that after years of being gone Vinyl LP’s made a comeback since they apparently have superior sound to their other counterparts digital or otherwise. In the same way I think we will have a hybrid approach to our media for the forseeable future for the simple fact that there are plenty of people that prefer physical mediums, humans are at their very nature physical creatures. Physical mediums will persist even if they are going to diminish in comparision to digital but only as long as their existence do not become to expensive to uphold even if there is willing audience for these mediums.
One thing I am curious about is what are you going to write about Video Games as a medium being digitizied? Video Games I feel are kind of a different beast than the other mediums and you have to consider there are many ways to play Video Games and all of them are very different from each other in different ways. Are you going to discuss Video Games in the context of consoles, handhelds, PC or mobile? All consoles and handhelds do offer the digital alternative to their physical ones yet as far as I know physical sales still trumps digital 5 to 1. You have to consider that all consoles and handhelds are by their very nature propietary meaning their software can only be accessed on a specific machine. PC on the other hand is almost exclusively becoming digital (with plenty of digital platforms to choose from such as Steam) and interestingly is one of the first mediums to do so but that has more to do with the rampant piracy than actual people wanting it that way. DRM is also very popular on PC because of the high risk of piracy, however in many cases the DRM is designed to be unobtrusive even though there are exceptions to that rule. Mobile on the other hand never had a physical medium to begin with. I’m not certain how you are going to tackle the Video Games transistion into digital mediums since they exisit on many very different mediums.