by Alice Atkinson-Bonasio

Created on: October 12, 2008

Save Yourself: A Brief History of the Save Feature and Its Uses

The save feature and its uses have affected the videogame industry and the gaming community. The community of videogame players has taken a tool that was provided by the games industry as an aid to a solitary player the save feature - and transformed it into a incredibly effective social tool, with implications that have now forced the industry to change the way it looks at the save feature its the new generation of consoles.

Videogames have been considered to be a solitary activity by many academics such as Kline and Turkle. A less text-centred approach to gaming, however, reveals a much more varied and sophisticated picture. As far back as when videogames were played in arcades, we experience people coming together who would otherwise not have done so. They socialized thorough, and because of games. Videogaming websites are a modern version of this phenomenon, where supportive social networks are formed. It is easy to notice the sense of community present in any such site, and the same all-welcoming atmosphere. Looking through some of these sites, you can notice active participation from all genders, nationalities and backgrounds.

Gaming is an inherently social activity, acting as a pivotal point in the social and cultural lives of many players. Players watch others play and assimilate those watched experiences with their own. Sharing and trading knowledge about games is an important part of the social interaction that takes place among fans, and virtual spaces such as bulletin boards and chat rooms allow players to share knowledge not only about games, but also about console capabilities.

The save feature in games works in a primary level as a safety net, meaning that if you fail at some point along the way, (and you are indeed expected to fail) you will be "punished" with the frustrating task of breaking up the gaming experience and restarting the game from the nearest save point. This "punishment" however, is not so harsh as to make you lose hours of play and start from the very beginning.

This system of punishment and reward is therefore central to the gaming experience. While it can hardly be conceived that a game that constantly frustrated the player without offering any rewards would attract large numbers of fans, a game where all obstacles were easily surmounted would certainly deny players the sense of achievement that is crucial to the gaming experience.

It could also be argued that save

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