Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Retail distribution of games to disappear in 20-25 years

Experts have claimed that an entirely digital distribution driven market is inevitable, although still a ways off yet.

A video by Scott Steinberg, and reported in gamesindustry.biz, features a number of industry executives agreeing that digital distribution would eventually take over.

Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell, general manager of GameStop, Chris Petrovic, Wedbush Morgan senior analyst Michael Pachter and executive VP and general manager at Disney Interactive Studios are all contributed to the video.

The good news for retail is Pachter's time frame is still generous - it will be 20-25 years before the last games retail shops disappear off the landscape.

This report echoes the efforts that the likes of Square Enix, Sony, and EA to set themselves up with a sound presence in the downloadable space.

The rules of publishing are different there, and I image that as the transition begins to ramp up space, those publishers and developers without a firm concept of how to operate in the medium will start to struggle.

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