ABSTRACT
The Shifting Sands of Platform A tremendous amount of discussion takes place in the digital game realm about platforms. Players and designers are constantly debating about PC vs. console vs. mobile vs. tablet vs. web vs. handheld vs. arcade vs. etcetera vs. etcetera. Which is the best? The most protable? The most fun? The most likely to still be here in three years? It is human nature to assume that when something is successful, it will remain that way forever. But it isn’t the case. Some things stay, and some go. Television mostly replaced radio, but it didn’t replace movies. Arcade gaming was replaced by PC gaming, which was replaced by console gaming, but then PC gaming came back, and mobile and tablet gaming rose up. Is it random? Absolutely not. The thing that makes specic technologies come and go from our lives is as old and persistent as humanity itself. The mistake that we make again and again is to focus too much on the existing technologies (which, though new and shiny, are ephemeral) and to forget to focus on something so familiar as to be invisible: the places in our lives that we use those technologies. I like to call these venues.
