"What's in the box" Giveaway in full swing

We've been running the "What's in the box?" Giveaway for the last six days and so far there are t-shirts from LA Noire, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, and GoldenEye Reloaded, along with copies of Skyrim (360) and the Uncharted Dual Pack (PS3).

Today's addition marks the first "What the hell?" item to be added. (Not to worry, there will be more items like it!) I included the two pieces of paper regarding the agreement for the WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos beta for a couple of reasons.

First, I couldn't believe I had them. I'd clipped them into a binder with about 3" worth of old press releases. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe for the contact information on the press releases? That's my guess. Somehow that seemed easier than writing out the information or entering it into a database, maybe.

Second, it marks almost a decade since WarCraft III launched. A game that spawned not only Defense of the Ancients (or DOTA as it's more commonly known), which in some sense was responsible for the likes of League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, but was ultimately the precursor to the massively successful World of WarCraft. In that light, it's an interesting document to hold in my hands. By the very fact that it's a couple of pieces of paper rather than an online form, makes it significant. People stopped using paper for these kinds of things a long time ago so it's kind of cool to have a physical thing to hold and look at.

With the move to digital, ten years from now this kind of documentation will be unheard of and that actually scares me a little, even if it means less clutter in my basement.

Having something exist out there in the cloud doesn't make me feel very good. That feel of the page between my fingers makes it much more real. I have a feeling I won't get the same warmth of nostalgia when I click by the Terms of Service without a blink.