March 4th, 2009

Retail Problems?!

Crisis. Cooldown. Layoffs. Bankruptcy. No more retail games. Damn it, I hate these! Nevermind the first 4, the big problem is that various companies claim to have retail problems just to kill the computer games as we know them and push us into a fully digital era. Well, not "push," but "kick," because that's what I see happening. Today, it's about more than just one voice claiming that digital distribution is the way of the future...

First, we have GamersGate's CEO, Theodore Bergquist, who told GamesIndustry.biz that "I've been in e-commerce since 1996 and I haven't seen a goods business model better than this. It's so pure online in its nature - I can't really see how a traditional retailer can survive, unless they decide to go online themselves," while talking about bricks-and-mortar retailers, so that could leave a chance for retail boxes to continue existing, but...

...look at Capcom's VP of strategic planning Christian Svensson words: "Capcom is trying to lead in digital distribution, and I would go as far as to say that in the console space we are already the leading software publisher. We’ve had the highest revenue-generating Xbox Live title, we’ve had the highest revenue-generating Wii title, we’re definitely in the top three or four on the PlayStation network."

What can I say? I hate it, but I have to admit it - we're having retail problems here. Considering the fact that more and more consumers begin to count every penny spent, that means retail boxes are becoming one of the endangered species.

"One of the problems, to be candid, is that retail is falling away. What are the reasons for that? Partly it’s that return rates are very high. Returns of a PC title are usually double that of a console title - why? Because it’s not a great consumer experience because there’s variation in minimum spec, and it requires a lot of consumer knowledge to figure out exactly what is in their box, and what that will run,"concluded Svensson.

Consoles, downloadable games, retail problems. That's a serious slice of the present, and probably these are the keywords to rule the future. Not a future that I dreamed of, but one we may be forced to accept...