GameStop waves off alternative forms of retail until 2020

Napster was perfectly legal until the RIAA got a bug up their asses and made it illegal.

The end is NIGH! Believe it my friend!

Ok listen, as with all things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I think a lot of people on the innernette are overestimating the rate at which digital distribution will gain ground.

Likewise, a lot of people in meatspace are underestimating the rate at which digital distribution will gain ground.

Yeh there isn't a big digital market at all.

Just steam,direct 2 drive,impulse,good old games,ea store,metabole(the game one),greenhouse games,gfw live marketplace(when it gets going),popcap and thats just the big ones of the top of my head.

There is then alot of small ones run by groups of indi devs.

Death to Gamestop!

"Aside from the games, the bandwidth, etc., our studies have concluded that the network won't be in place to do digital distribution of full games until 2020 to 2025."

That's odd, I buy full games off of Steam all the time. Assassin's Creed, Unreal Tournament 3, Orange Box, etc.

I can't believe joystiq missed the chance to have a windmill asking if you'd like to preorder something.

2020? Not even, 2030 maaaaaaaybe. Lets see, music has been digitally distributed for a long time now and is very popular but not so popular that they are gonna stop selling cds in stores anytime soon. Its gonna be a combo of both for a long time to come.

This guy could turn out to be right if bandwidth caps are forced onto all of us like they were for comcast subscribers. Especially since most ISP's probably aren't going to be as generous as Comcast with their 250gb cap (which is incredibly high, despite what some people think)

I haven't shopped at a gamestop since very shortly after they bought Babbages. Babbages was the best store ever, and Gamestop completely ruined it. I shant forget (then there is the whole...selling you a new game they hope you'll trade in BS, and trying to sell you a magazine, and offering you a used game for a 2 dollar discount, and....how are they still in business again?)

Babbages 4 Life.

The only reason they don't want to do it is because you can't exactly buy a used download for nothing the sell it back to someone for 400% markup.

My favorite method of distribution is called ebay. Its kind like gamestop with less gouging.

Technical infrastructure aside, buying retail currently has two advantages which I don't see the majority giving up anytime soon. Not only can consumers use the products they buy without restrictions, they're also able to resell that product down the road. Current digital rights management prevents the digital distribution system from competing at the level needed in order to surpass traditional retail sales.

Digital distribution of large budget titles likely caught on with PC users because they're hooped either way. Spore is a shinning example of how companies seek to control how gamers use the products they "buy" from them.

Some in the industry may view digital distribution as a replacement for retail sales, however I'm certain Internet service providers aren't going to jack-up your monthly bandwidth consumption for free. Then there is the argument that digital music only caught on because most people got/get it for free. In technical fantasy land digital distribution is great, but in reality retail continues to offer many more advantages.

What I find funny is all the "death to GameStop" cliques when they don't even realize it's business. It seems like the cool thing to do is to hate on GameStop without any valid reasons. Oh heaven forbid they ask you if you want to buy a game used, pre-order, or want a subscription. I don't see any "death to Sears, Walmart, Best Buy, etc" groups around there when they ask you if you want to put a protection plan on that $1000 TV. Does it really annoy you that much that you have to rant and rave when they ask you 1 to 3 extra questions? No, but you do it because everyone else does it, gg.

Everyone's always saying it, but I just dont see DD being the main method of retail, sure by 2020 when we have The Grid or Internet 4 or whatever the hell it is, but now, it takes like 5 times as long to download a game than to drive or even walk to a nearby gamestop or any store that sells games

How was napster the first digital distribution? I seem to recall being able to download shareware way before I ever heard of p2p. Screw gamestop, I'd rather buy a game off steam any day.

"Even conservative projections place GameStop in control of the global marketplace by 2017."

The "global" marketplace? Are they really likely to kick Game from PAL regions and various retailers from Japan? Scary stuff...

If digital distribution was the standard method in which a game company brought out it's game and there was no way to buy the game used, on sale, or (generally speaking) NOT at the price regulated by the Company, then the industry would suffer a great blow in it's software sales, and eventually it's hardware sales.

Do you know why Gamestop is still around? Besides screwing stupid people.... It's because there are so many people love games but want to feel like they are getting a deal. It takes a truely EPIC game (not THAT "EPIC") to make me want to purchase it at full price.

"The software publishers are afraid to death of piracy. Once a full game is lying on a hard drive, there's the potential for piracy."

How does gamestop's "buy, sell, and trade used games" model put any more money into the pockets of software publishers than piracy does?

Digital distribution has a couple of major, major drawbacks that simply going down to the local used video game store lacks.

(1) The internet is a subscription based service. God forbid I ever decide not to pay 40$ a month to Shaw Cable, what would I do for video games?

(2) If I ever get tired of a digital game, I can't sell it, or give it to my friend who wants to trade games with me, or....anything, really. I don't control it. And I spent money on it, too.

(3) I have to pay lots of money for it. GameStop is so successful because you can buy a game that came out a week ago for half price because some little kid didn't like it. Or you can get older games that are just plain difficult to find without having to pay shipping and handling charges and ridiculous prices on eBay.

So....no. I don't think digital distribution will be the wave of the future. People still like to actually OWN what they pay for.

You know, the internet is THIS close to becoming a glorious place where all media is free. In that regard, piracy is inching us ever closer to being Star Trek: TNG.

so Steam traveled in a time machine from the year 2025?

Someone needs to do better research... Napster was not the first P2P app, it was just the first to make headlines over a lawsuit.

Is anyone really surprised that Gamestop is downplaying DD? If DD were to become the standard for gaming Gamestop would quickly lose business.

For PC gaming, I'd say DD is or is on it's way to becoming the standard. Most retailers won't accept PC games for trade-ins anyway and I havn't seen Gamestop stock a decent amount of PC games in years (with the exception of WoW). Gamestop doesn't really give a damn about PC games anyway.

As for consoles, I think DD is eventually going to become the standard. Oh it'll take awhile, at least 10 years if not longer, but it'll happen. As the Gamestop exec stated the companies get a bigger cut from DD and, from a business perspective, that's very tempting. Piracy also won't be as nearly of a problem on consoles as this exec would like you to think 'cause consoles aren't nearly as easy as PC's mess around with in that regard. I figure that the consoles will be following the PC's example and test the waters with DD by offering a retail version of games and the option to do DD. If the DD does well enough they'll start to slowly switch to DD-only until disc games are a thing of the past.

And before I forget, fuck this guy for trying to pass off Napster as direct download. It was a P2P network. Napster (originally, anyway) never just put up content for download someone else had to have the data to share. DD and P2P are two seperate things.