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| A gaming box this is. NOT. |
As I was marveling at the current variety of available subscription boxes, a question suddenly popped up in my mind: could there be boxes centered on gaming? An online search was prompt to reveal that such boxes were indeed available on the internet, ready for the subscribing, and I was not far from leaping with joy; however, a deeper examination revealed that these boxes didn't exactly fit my idea of what a gaming-centered box should have been.
It's interesting to note that gaming boxes are called "crates" instead of "boxes", a semantic change that was probably motivated by a desire to distance gaming boxes from their beauty-oriented ancestors and to add a dose of virility to the concept. That's all well and nice, and I'm pretty sure that such a designation will conjure up fantasies of Nathan Drake looting crates in the middle of the jungle in the mind of many a potential buyer, but what matters is the content. And the content is, well... not exactly what I would have expected from something called a "gaming box". Or crate.
This is the biggest paradox here: these so-called gaming boxes only have the most tenuous link with gaming per se. Upon careful inspection, all of them offer a wide array of various goodies that are not necessarily related to gaming, but rather to a wider geek/nerd/pop culture that is a potpourri of movies, comics, TV shows, books—and occasionally games—and that the average gamer is supposed to know, love and subscribe to—quite literally in that case. The range of goodies offered is leniently large, going from figurines to tee-shirts to mugs to absolutely any item that can be adorned with the logo of a franchise. That universal recipe is then refined with the inclusion of a special touch specific to each box provider, i.e. some unique goodies whose link with gaming is even more impossibly tenuous: candies or manly snacks such as beef jerky and energy drinks, to name only a few.
I could digress endlessly on the laughable cliché quality of these boxes, whose curators seem to be unable to imagine a gamer who hates comics, doesn't own a TV and loves nothing more than to sip a good cup of Earl Grey whilst playing games or writing blog posts (a faithful description of yours truly), or on their no less cliché definition of geek/nerd/pop culture, which casts the net far and wide to haul in more potential subscribers. But I will limit my commentary to the biggest bone of contention here: these so-called gaming boxes do NOT revolve around gaming. The items they offer may be well-crafted collectibles for all I know, but they are only marginally tied to gaming—that is, when they are tied to gaming at all. This nearly qualifies as false advertising, or at least as an unfulfilled thematic premise—and promise: these boxes should be renamed "nerd boxes" or "pop culture boxes" to be true to their contents.
Of course, I fully understand that the creation of a genuine "gaming box" solely centered on gaming would be pretty much impossible. Such a box would have to contain full-blown games and/or gaming merchandise such as figurines, pouches and the like, all things that are either too expensive, too niche or sold only in Japan. I could imagine a Japanese firm creating a gaming box revolving around famous videogame franchises and consoles and stuffing each box with related goodies, but would the appeal of such a box be wide enough to guarantee its perennity? If the filling choices of all the existing "gaming boxes" is any indication, the answer is probably negative. Oh, well.
There has thus been no subscription to a gaming box for me, and I will have to make do with my Japanese snacks from Tokyo Treat as my sole box subscription. (Which I highly recommend if you're a Japanese food and/or snack aficionado, en passant.) Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
If gaming boxes were like the one in your picture, I'd buy them immediately. But I generally don't care for gaming merchandise, which is why I never go for collector's editions. Occasionally I might buy a plushie, I have some Sonic, Spyro, Digimon and Pokemon plushies, but it's because the characters are cute and are something I would buy anyways. I've been wanting a Tenko plushie from Toukiden so bad. Other than that, I find that a lot of art books are bad, and the few good ones (like a few Megami Tensei ones) I buy separately. Every other piece of merchandising is not for me. I don't live in a palace and not all gamers want to have their shelves filled to the brim with figurines and their walls so full of posters you can barely see the wall paint. It's another thing these sellers don't seem to understand. I mean, I mostly buy digital nowadays because of convenience and space issues, how the heck am I gonna find room for figurines, pillows and mugs?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to subscribe to an art supply box though. Those seem like a wonderful way to try out some supplies I wouldn't have bought on my own. But I'd rather focus on my marker collection first, so for now I don't have any either. But in general, creative hobbies seem to have better boxes.
Oh, and I also don't like comics and only have a TV for my consoles. I also love a wide array of teas and have been trying lots of custom infusions from a new tea shop. I don't drink coffee, much less energy drinks. Beef jerky will never be a snack for me. So I guess I couldn't even enjoy the food from the gaming "crates".
DeleteSeriously, they are trying so hard to appeal to their image of a fat geek who thinks he's manly way too much. It's kinda pathetic. Most other boxes I've seen offer harmless snacks such as candy and lollipops, but apparently gaming is too manly for that.
So would I! :P To be fair, I finally dug out a genuine gaming box that does offer actual games, The Indie Box. It's far from being the most publicized one, and it has the inconvenient of focusing only on independant PC games; but still, the content of this box revolves around gaming, which is more than most gaming boxes can claim.
Delete"Not all gamers want to have their shelves filled to the brim with figurines and their walls so full of posters you can barely see the wall paint": I totally agree with you on this one. I have no interest in figurines and I loathe posters. Always have, always will. To think that gamers will automatically love and crave every single goodie related to a game is but an oversimplification... Although it may prove true in many case, if the success of so-called gaming boxes and gaming goodies in general is any indication. I was checking figurines the other day on Play-Asia and the prices made my eyes bleed!
Are there art supply boxes? Gee, I'm learning something new every day!^^ When you mention a marker collection, do you mean Pantone markers? I used to own a fair number of them back in my university days when I was drawing manga. Aah, sweet youth...
"Seriously, they are trying so hard to appeal to their image of a fat geek who thinks he's manly way too much. It's kinda pathetic": Amen! :D
DeleteI love beef jerky, but that's not what I want to get from a so-called "gaming box". Seriously!
Ah-ha, another tea aficionado!^^ Russian Earl Grey is life and Lapsang Souchong is hometown! My dream is to subscribe to a tea box, but I've not found any interesting one so far... I'm waiting for my moment in the shadow, a cup of Oolong in my hand!^^
There are tons of art supplies boxes nowadays, from ones that offer full sets of materials likes pastels, paints, etc, to ones that offer assorted Japanese pens. The ones with the assorted pens and markers are my favourites, there's such a variety of effects those mediums offer nowadays.
DeleteFunny you mentioned pantone. The biggest producer that used their colour selection nowadays were the tria markers by the Letraset company and it was recently acquired by Winsor and Newton, so their markers are no more. Winsor and Newton now uses them to make two lines of their own markers, which I heard are really good, but I haven't tried them yet. I personally prefer copics myself. Expensive, but you can't beat their colour selection, their affordable ink refills and their awesome brush tip that has just the right flexibility. The Pantone universe markers still exist, but they're one of the least used markers nowadays for some reason. I guess they're harder to get a hold off
I love almost all sorts of Earl Grey tea and many types of White tea, but it's always exciting to try out an odd infusion. Recently I tried a chocolate and strawberry infusion, which I thought I wouldn't like because it has an awful smell (the chocolate is too strong and I don't appreciate that in my tea smell), but it actually tastes pretty nice and I ended up buying a can of it. And they have some various passion fruit blends I'm eyeing.
Oh, I think I had heard of of Indie box before. It offers physical copies of indie games, right? That one is actually a pretty neat concept, I would buy it if they started offering boxed vita games. There's some pretty good indie tittles on it that I wouldn't mind displaying on a shelf.
Jeez, it feels weird to learn that the Tria markers are nearly a thing of the past, given that they were all the rage a couple of years ago... Oh, well. Trends come and go!
DeleteI also appreciate the occasional infusion or flavoured tea: I just polished off a box of black tea with a poire belle helene flavour and started a box of green tea with lemon tart flavour. Just delicious!
Indeed, the Indie Box offers physical copies of indie games with specially designed feelies, a concept that seriously tugs at my collector instinct. However, the fact that the games are for PC only and the ludicrous shipping fees for Europe stopped me... Although this last obstacle would be brushed aside in a second if they started offering boxed vita games!
You know, I found LootCrate.com a few weeks back, and I remember feeling some high degree of joy, _almost_ but not quite reaching for my wallet. I took a minute and thought about it, and I realized that if I really wanted all of this shit.. I could just go buy all of it. Probably for a little more money, and without the element of surprise, but I thought about it more since then.
ReplyDeleteI took a look at their past loot crates, and I realized I would have been pissed if I got any of them. First off, what person who likes videogames is into "everything"? Where's the logic in that? I don't give a crap about Star Wars, Halo, Street Fighter, the Hunger Games, any kind of comics, or the Punisher. Guess what, the past 4 months had all of those things.
The stuff I'm into, I can buy on Amazon for like $10 and have the next day.
The whole concept for these gaming boxes is silly, really. Using the same logic, I'll come up with another idea for a subscription box. It's for people who are big into cars. You pay me $100 a month, and I'll send you random car parts. Maybe a t-shirt with some arbitrary car brand on them. Trucktober in October. Minivan March. Maybe some sparkplugs from a 2005 F-150, you know, for your collection of other car parts. Pink socks with a Prius on them. Let's throw in a few model trains too, since both cars and trains have wheels, so you're obviously into them.
See how ridiculous that sounds? Who the hell would pay for that? Sigh. This is why I'm eternally in the gaming closet.
Your description of a "Car Box" cracked me up! I laughed out loud, I swear. It DOES sound ridiculous. There is no way one can properly curate such a box, and the same goes for "gaming" boxes.
DeleteI don't read comics nor watch TV shows, and I don't care one bit about Star Wars and that slew of distopyan series that popped up during the last decade, so I fully agree with the idea that videogame aficionados cannot be into "everything. However, a substantial amount of gamers must feel compelled to subscribe to the whole nerd/geek culture and to embrace all of its aspects; otherwise, these crates wouldn't sell and there wouldn't be a waiting list for most of the subscriptions.
"Gaming closet"... Now that's an interesting expression! Do you mean that you don't flaunt around the fact that you play games? That would be interesting, because I do the exact same thing. I never talk about gaming except on the internet and no one around me is fully aware of the full extent of my gaming and collecting. It's like a private little world for my eyes only, a secret that would lose its value and turn into a mundane thing if I flaunted it around.
Your blog looks pretty interesting, by the way. I'll take a closer look at it as soon as possible! :)
Hah! We sound very similar, and that in itself is even more proof that the whole 'gamer' cliche is so awful and played out. You'd think after fancy cell phones and the fact that everyone and their grandmother plays some sort of game now, that whole "gamer" label would just die out. The boxes you discuss here just enforce all the worst stereotypes, like a poster said earlier too, about it being "for overweight fake alpha males", and that group of people.
DeleteYa know, to me, gaming is my thing that I like so much, and I don't like talking about it with other people in real life, because that cheapens it. I'll talk about it all day, online with strangers, but that's about it! In fact, the times I have openly talked about gaming in person, it felt like it suddenly became the lamest thing ever. I race dirt bikes too, just for fun, and when people ask me about that, I don't like telling them. Hard phenomenon to explain.
I'm a big fan of this blog btw, your writing style is very pleasant to read. I'm still pretty new (couple months actually putting out articles) and you seem very established, but if you'd ever like to trade links, shoot me a line!
When I started gaming back in the early '90s, the world "gamer" as applied to people playing videogames didn't even exist. Gaming consoles were just fancy toys that every kid wanted, boys and girls alike. The whole debate about the supposed recent breakthrough of females in gaming makes me snigger and sneer, because back in the days, most girls at school and in my neighbourhood owned a gaming console. Gamers have always come in all shapes and sizes, and the appropriation of the "gamer" moniker by a fringe of the community will not change that fact.
DeleteI remember purchasing Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby during a family trip last summer and eluding the subject when one of my family member asked me what this was about. What could I have answered? "Oh, it's a game in which you imprison cute animals and use them to beat the crap out of other cute animals"? This would have sounded utterly lame, and morally wrong to boot. And let's not even talk about all these fan-servicy RPGs in which I indulge on a regular basis.
Thanks a lot for the kind words! You made my day with that. I'm planning to read your posts very soon and comments will obviously be in order! :)