Ode to the Optical Drive
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PC gamers, we’re gathered here today to honor an old friend whose warranty has long expired. As the law of upgrade cycles dictates, we must drop components that can no longer keep up with modern demands. It is therefore with a heavy heart that we say our final farewell to you, our constant partner for the past 20 years.
Rest in peace, humble optical drive.
You were the cornerstone of this community, the joy, the gateway to the game, and our ally in our pursuit of entertainment. You gave us the gorgeous world of mystery, the sublime soundscape of Quake, the unprecedented complexity of Half-Life. You are the miracle of your time, drawing out the realm of infinite possibility from those small, harmless discs. At the time, it felt like magic.
Nearly 30 years ago now, you entered the world with a vision. With Red Book audio and full-motion video, you sold us the Hollywood dream of seeing Mark Hamill race a giant cat alien and Jeff Goldblum will The kill was Dracula, Christopher Walken told us straight out of the box, and . . . a flawless performance. Video games seem poised to completely replace movies. If we can play, why should we watch? Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, but thanks to you, we will always have those fond memories. Your legacy will live on in the hearts of all of us.
As we entrust you to the great servers in the sky, let us reflect on what you have done for the world. Who can forget how important you are in the dial-up age? The helix of our 56K modem is taut under the weight of a single mp3; the idea of downloading an entire 750MB CD-ROM is unfathomable. Even with the advent of wired internet, we still rely on you to support us through the file size boom of the DVD era. Steam may eventually replace you, but your stability during the unstable early days of the platform is what drives our games.
When you were young, your laissez-faire attitude allowed our community to thrive. Personally, my favorite childhood memories owe to your liberal attitude to game trading; as a kid, hiring and borrowing games was the only way I could afford to play. Thanks to borrowing a friend’s Diablo II, I discovered my penchant for clicker games. Thanks to renting Battlefield 1942, I’ve come to appreciate the magic of online multiplayer. Thanks to Baldur’s Gate II, I realized that games can tell big, complex stories that actually take advantage of their interactivity rather than ignore it. Of course, we all understand why once people start abusing your freedom, you have to jump on the DRM train. Still, those unbridled early years were crucial in making our community as great as it is today.
The truth is, old friend, we don’t have any room for you at all.
Alas, those peaceful days are long behind us. The battle for distribution models is over, and there is no doubt about who loses. How is it possible to go the other way? Steam allows us to pre-order, pre-load, tinker, and play without ever leaving the comfort of our desk. Gone are the overwhelmed shelves under the weight of bejeweled CD cases and boxy collector’s editions. We no longer have to rummage through dusty attics and damp basements for old copies of Days of the Tentacle – boxes.
Despite all the joy you have given us, we cannot ignore the dark times you started. Refusing to read a brand new disc until we carefully dust off every minute of it. Grab our favorite games as punishment for playing too much. Asks us to “insert disc 2” when it’s already in the damn tray. And those multi-disk installs! How can you expect us to set aside hours in exchange for seven DVDs of GTA 5?
Seven DVDs of GTA 5.
At least you’re in a better position now, a place where the RPMs are unlimited and the CDs are truly scratch resistant. Because as painful as we say it on this day of mourning, you hinder the industry. Bite-sized games never stand a chance against the pain of disk swapping. Aspiring developers cringe at the cost of pressing and shipping the disc. We would never have known the haunting oppression of Papers, Please, the touching story of Gone Home, the time-bending antics of Superhot if we hadn’t moved to all-digital now. We’re going to have to say goodbye to our huge Steam library of hundreds — or buy a second house to store all of our CDs.
The truth is, old friend, we don’t have any room for you at all. Not in our home, not in our hearts. Your place at the top of our PC tower no longer exists. Our mini-ITX chassis is no longer for your convenience. We’ll never hear your mechanical hum again, your voice drowned out by the hum of our bigger and better hard drives. From cache to ashes, from disc to dusk, your time is up. You are simply too slow for this digital world.
16X.
8X.
4X.
2X.
1X.
injection.
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