Digital Distribution Good News

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the good news in digital distribution. Getting games to consumers with bits, rather than boxes, seems to ensure that we'll have a wider variety of titles to choose from in the future. The path looks at indie title Red Orchestra on its path to our desktops. From the article: "Of course, with a digital distribution deal, there is usually no big marketing push from the distributor like there is with a big publisher. But, through Steam we would be selling into the hardcore FPS gamer market. And as a result of the Valve deal, Red Orchestra got solid editorial exposure in major PC game publications, including two page 'preview' articles in PC Gamer US and UK."

Comments

Stardock is an example of digital distribution

[Shivetya]

You can buy many of their games through download. In fact their recently released game, Galactic Civilizations ][ was easier to obtain that way than finding. http://www.galciv2.com/

One interesting issue about digital distribution versus retain was covered by their own people in journals available on the site.

Adventures in Retail
http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=164&AID=103584

Economics in Gaming
http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx?ForumID=164&A ID=101602

For some companies there is no real exposure on the store shelf. The big problem is, how do people then ever learn of your product? Browsing the games while in BB/CU/Etc is one thing, but how is there an effective online equivalent to that?