“In five years’ time or so, I doubt websites will exist and I expect the vast majority of sites from the first twenty years of the web to be gone forever,” says Jim Boulton, curator of Digital Archaeology.

How does a platform powering 9 million new devices every month have almost no credibility with developers, analysts and press alike? This is the story of one of the most successful failures in tech history.

It’s starting to bother me now when I see conventional, classic video, with narratives, and credits, and sets, and proper lighting and shooting. It’s like watching an oration in Latin.

It was a mission any fan of first-person shooters would accept: fly to Los Angeles and be transported to an undisclosed location to play Call of Duty: Black Ops two weeks before its release.

Whisked from LAX first via black SUV and then five helicopters – mine a now-civilian Huey chopper, a stalwart of the Vietnam War – three dozen of us arrived at the Ojai (Calif.) Valley Inn & Spa. In each of our rooms: a 55-inch Samsung 3D LED display, a Panasonic surround sound system, an Xbox 360 system and a customized Mad Catz gaming headphone setup.