As Digital distribution becomes more popular, sales happen. Whenever a sale appears, many gamers instantly hit that “confirm buy” button. Without a tangible way to document how many games that actually includes, or how many of them we have time to play, we may be victims of digital hoarding.
The definition of hoarding includes having things that you no longer use taking up space. When you have services like Cloud, Dropbox, and your own localized storage, that is your place. Those locations have a finite amount of space in them, and it becomes all too easy to fill up those hard drives with those nice inexpensive games that were at one time or another on sale. Or, you can have a desire to own them so strong that you just buy them at their full price, and whammo - space on your hard drives is lost forever to the game that is sitting on your digital shelf picking up digital dust.
We’ve already discussed filling up ones hard drives, but this goes into the issue of deletion moreso than simply having. How difficult is it to go through your hard drive and hit the “delete forever” button on, regardless of how simple it would be to re-download? I have had a huge issue with this, even as my Xbox 360 and PS3 hard drives come up to over 80% full due to game storage. Soon I won’t even be able to walk through my house hard drives.
I’ve gone through as many measures as I can think of to clear up that space without deleting my games. Deleting full-game installs (like Metal Gear Solid 4 on the Playstation 3. That took up, uh - way too much space), clearing cache data, deleting music, images, programs (Netflix almost got the axe, and I pay for that service) and finding every shortcut I am able, all so I can keep that digital bookshelf full.
Even on games such as Dead Rising 2 Case Zero, which I have 100% of everything out of the game, I still keep on my hard drive. It would be as simple as selecting “download again” from the Xbox 360 game store if I wanted it back for any reason, but even without something to look at - I like seeing it there, in my games list.
Hoarding.
That’s what it is. Digital hoarding. There is no purpose to keeping these old games that have been either 100% completed, or as completed as they’ll get for you. Your achievement and trophy data is still intact to look back on if you need proof you’ve completed it, but it’s still so hard to hit that “delete” button.
Does anyone else have that issue with anything? Are gamers just so heavy on the collecting (Rupies/gold/minerals/game currency, Diablo-esque loot, trophies/achievements, old gaming systems, etc) that we can’t let go of the digital content, regardless of the cost to your space?
New in Download and DLC
Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC unleashes some new maps in a delicious pack, and you get more zombies in this article with the new video and pics. This is fairly self explanatory, but for details hit the link at the beginning of this paragraph.
A new pseudo-indie title called ibb and obb is headed for Steam and PSN. The game messes with your gravity and tugs on those heart strings with two characters (ibb and obb I presume) to control through a colorful world of puzzle platforming.
A new PC/XBLA title is hacking, slashing, and crawling its way to a PC or Xbox near you in 2012. It’s called Realms of Ancient War, and it’s beautiful thus far. Making a nod to Diablo in its own unique way, we’re sure to enjoy the co-op in this.
Finally, in a Free For You news kind of way, Brink’s first DLC will be free for its first two weeks. Expected to launch in early July (That’s Friday. Hard to believe, I know). New stages, new abilities, two new weapons, and two costumes will be available. Snag it while it’s hot. And by hot, I mean free.