Around 2,000 North American game developers took part in a poll that was issued at GDC 2014, and, judging from the data, it looks like retail sales are losing steam.
“The State of the Industry Survey” found that only 13 percent of the developers had the majority of their profits come through retail sales, while a whopping 29 percent said that the majority of their profits come through direct sales to customers. Couple those numbers with the fact that around 21 percent of the developers polled said that micro-transactions mainly drive up their profits and it is clear that digital sales are gaining momentum.
However, most of the developers interviewed are planning to release their current game onto either PC or mobile devices. Since most mobile devices only support digital downloads and not retail purchases, it is unclear from this survey if console developers are also getting most of their profits through digital sales, or if retail sales are still behind their earnings.
Do you purchase console games digitally or do you buy physical copies of them? Do you think games will ever leave the physical markets entirely?
[Source: Games Industry]
