Since the ancient beginnings of the gaming industry, games have been purchased in physical (disc or cartridge) form. Most consumers have become accustomed to the process of purchasing a hard copy of a game and placing it into the gaming hardware. However, digital distribution exploded onto the scene only a few years ago, and since then it has continued to grow as more consumers continue to embrace it. Most surprisingly, a few predictions have stated that digital distribution will become the standard form of distribution in the future, which to many is very surprising.
Among those that claim that digital distribution is the future is EA Sports president Peter Moore. In a recent interview, he stated that the current distribution model is a sinking platform, and that it is clearly on its way out. On top of that, Peter Moore also stated the following:
“As digital distribution becomes more and more, we’ll continue as an industry to work with retail and to ship discs, but more and more of the content will be in the ‘cloud. More content will be delivered daily, weekly, or monthly, and less will be of the old model of cartridges and discs.”
Surprisingly, he does mention that discs will still be shipped by gaming companies to retail, but it seems that more games will be readily available through online distribution. The real incentive for companies to jump onboard is the simple fact that used copy sales do hurt the gaming industry, and digital distribution seems to solve this problem. However, there is no arguing that millions of consumers around the globe prefer to own a hard copy, and for that very reason it’s hard to imagine a scenario where its form goes extinct.
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