Game Retailers Facing Digital Distribution Transition

This editorial at Eurogamer examines how the games industry is dealing with the growth of digital distribution — a transition they're handling better than other entertainment industries, but not without a few stumbling blocks of their own. "The examples from other industries undergoing this transition are not promising, since they tend largely to focus on metaphors involving creeks and a distinct lack of paddles. Bricks-and-mortar retailers of music and movies have largely sat back and grumbled while their businesses were hijacked, first by online retailers of physical product and then by digital distribution services. ... Specialist games retailers who follow that model face little more than a decline into insolvency in their medium-term futures. Worse again, they face competing with far bigger companies to retain their slice of an already shrinking pie — as boxed game retail sales fall off in favor of digital distribution, supermarket chains are increasingly seeing high profile games as a worthwhile loss-leaders."

Comments

Re:If I can't sell if used on Ebay...

[carou]

I generally buy games "behind the curve", after they've come down in price, and after enough time for the hype to wear off, and for it to become common knowledge whether the game is actually that awesome or not.

Oblig xkcd.

The cake may or not be a lie! (I wouldn't want to spoil the ending for you).