The World Wide Web is a weird, interesting and sometimes horrible place. Sometimes, and really just sometimes though, you would find the weirdest gems like these. People doing the most unexpected things, things that you might not know to care. But you do now.

But Why?

Jess Morrissette, the creator, started the project back in 2016 and began cataloguing these machines on their website via the Video Game Soda Machine Project. Why? Nobody knows. It’s just one of those things that bored individuals on the internet will come up with.

What I do know is that they seem to have come up with a massive collection of 3000 machines in 3000 games (yes, of course nuka cola machines are inside; why would they not be?) in a bevy of knock-offs, puns and other ridiculous hijinks that game developers get themselves into.

I have also come to realize after reading a little on the site that there are a lot more of these machines in games as the background element that most people don’t notice. Not to mention the bevy of genres where these machines serve nothing else but décor with no practical (a reminder that these boxy bois needed to be made via pixel-art or 3D rendering by a designer) purposes at all. Yes, I am advocating that there be more uses for these unassuming boxes ala Deus Ex or Streets of Rage style, hurling them at my enemies… other than you know, vend drinks.

Perhaps this massive collection will inspire others not only on the design, but on the gameplay reasons that these machines should exist in their worlds.

via RockPaperShotgun

Chia is the horse-author from the far flung year of 2153. While not grazing on grass pastures or reviewing old time-y games and technology from the early 21st century pretending to not know what comes next (as to not disturb the space-time continuum), he can be seen exchanging vast quantities of Earth currency for parts needed to fix his damaged space ship.