hello. we’ve been kind of out of it since we got in a car crash on wednesday night. Deep-Hell is primarily not a blog and we like to think of ourselves as critics. That being said, please enjoy this piece of light reading.

Part of the reason I still assemble Gundam models (known as Gunpla if you’re…not…into that) is because I still yearn for the feeling of having something purely physical in my hands. Something that’s not a game controller – something not associated with work or crafting. There is no labor value to playing with toys, that is, you get nothing material out of it.

Videogames are not toys, first and fore most. Videogames might be art, or at least a celebration of the work of artists. That debate is for more serious articles, the kind of articles filled with words like “fuck” and “piss” maybe the kind where I call someone a ass hole. Picking up the controller, interacting with the medium. These really do require a certain amount of willingness. To suspend sense of belief, to be ready to engage with the fiction, after all.

Toys are something that is entirely different. Sure, there are plenty of ways you can interact with them outside of the realm of play; Making your own toys, putting together incredible dioramas with custom paint and terrain. Uniquely, all of these still count as ways of play. I still pose the Gundams I assemble – I doubt any modeler doesn’t hum Char’s themesong when they finish putting together a Zaku.
It’s funny, a hobby I started to have something to do with my hands eventually went back to being a kind of play.

Videogames are not toys. We ‘Play’ with videogames, but it is almost always a type of play that is purely on someone elses terms. Engaging with set systems and rules, creating and crafting worlds that are at the very least hamstringed by the goals of a designer. Toys function purely in the realm of imagination. Not only do toys allow us to make and create the rules of our world, they allow us to own something. Digital toys have never truly hit this same sense, but I own every Gunpla I have put together, every toy I have purchased. It’s never hard to throw them away, but I’ll always keep one or two around.

As physical representations of brands, toys are one thing. I kind of yearn for the days of toys of soldiers or knights or what-have-you, because they were allowed to be their own thing. The description you got was seldom more than what was on the back of a piece of card-board, something more videogames should be willing to do. We rarely get to fill the blanks in with anything as adults, and oh-god, maybe that’s why there are a thousand lore videos about Dark Souls.

It might be surprising to pick up a toy if you haven’t in awhile – they’re still cheaper than videogames if you don’t have any. I personally hate encouraging anyone to go out and buy things: but god damn, it seems like we’re all trying to work with everything now. We engage with videogames and cinema as critics, connoisseurs. Comic books turn us into aficionados who think we could write just as good of a story. Millions of blogs, v-logs, video essays. Yet our relationship with toys is as personal as we’re willing to make it. As embarrassing as building Lego hangars for our Gundams.

We could probably all deal with actually getting to play every once in awhile.