Described by its Madrid-based developers Patattie Games as a cosy-punk narrative sim, Wax Heads puts you behind the counter of an ailing vinyl store. Every day, customers, new and returning, young and old, enter the store. Based on their descriptions, looks, or other visual cues, you are tasked to pick out the record they are looking for. One may find Wax Heads’ portrayal of communal belonging, valuing otherness, and staying true to oneself to be romantic to a fault, or find that its welcoming aesthetics run counter to the DIY messiness of counterculture movements. And I think those are fair points. Yet, despite these flaws, I valued Wax Heads’ hopefulness as a welcome antidote against the music industry’s capitalist cynicism. Admittedly, the genre description does sound cringe, but the makers’ genuine love for their game’s subject matter has a magnetic quality: how physical storefronts are threatened by digitisation and an embrace of AI-driven monoculture.
Following the emergence of smart devices, people’s online living and consumption sphere has become increasingly centralised. Sold as a promise of user-friendliness, this concentration comes at a cost. First, we sacrifice friction and serendipity as meaning-shaping occurrences. Our migration toward a select few platforms and devices reinforced a politics of visibility in which power and money gatekeep artists’ discoverability and opaque, algorithmic conditions increasingly mediate the pursuit of artistic endeavours. Second, when combined with predictive analytics, people’s expected, rather than experienced, preferences lead the market, reducing space for experimentation and risk-taking. Within a profit-oriented logic, automation thus engenders the loss, rather than the creation of new sounds. Of course, original artists and countercultures will still surface, but not without heightened opposition. And mind you, not everyone is willing to actively explore playlists, libraries, and magazines to unearth hidden gems. Third, to foster the seamless narrative of the digital, the physical has become an obstacle. Unlike digital content, which can be controlled through digital rights management systems, physical media impedes centralisation and the associated accumulation of wealth as it gives media providers greater control over supply chains. Among others, digitisation precludes the emergence of second-hand markets. Sure, physical media still has a presence, think of vinyl’s resurgence, but streaming currently dominates. Of course, all these dynamics interact in messy ways that cannot be easily untangled. And within each process, different power structures are at play. More often than not, it is artists and creativity that lose out in favour of Big Tech and major record labels.
Wax Heads therefore also offers a timely reflection on the state of play in the video game industry. Sony rightfully drew ire after announcing that it would end its physical disc production in January 2028. Regarding the physical/digital debate, the game industry is decidedly more precarious. Yes, niche companies like Evercade produce cartridge-based devices to counter (retro) gamers’ antagonism toward digital-only, but the contemporary console market and the overall health of the industry are greatly influenced by three key hardware players: Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. The existence of physical media in the games industry is largely justified by their proprietary hardware. This situation is different from the music industry, where third-party devices are readily available, or new systems interoperable with vinyl and CDs can be designed. Of course, the abandonment of physical media need not imply an increase in AI-slop. Most indie-developed games are currently digital only and sold on centralised platforms. Though they, too, struggle for discovery amid abundance, these titles consistently represent the medium at its most innovative. Still, there are sufficient reasons to lament the demise of physical media. Physical media allow for tangible record-keeping and preservation. What games like Wax Heads – such as the cabinet of curiosities duo Strange Horticulture and Strange Antiquities – demonstrate best, however, is that these physical spaces are important social dwellings where people can rally around their passions and share experiences and curated recommendations. In that respect, Wax Heads perfectly captures the capitalist project digitisation has become: an asocial process that does not hesitate to sacrifice the communal for profit.
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