The developer of Alan Wake and Max Payne thinks that the games industry will be better off the day it leaves physical retail behind for good.
Over the past few years, the industry has been making a slow transition to online digital distribution for games on services like Steam, Xbox Live and PSN, rather than making gamers physically go to a store and purchase a CD. Some have resisted this change, but others have embraced it – and Alan Wake studio Remedy thinks the sooner we go all digital, the better we’ll be.
Digital distribution opened up new options for developers and publishers, Remedy CEO Matias Myllyrinne told Edge in an interview. “I’m really excited about PSN, [Xbox] Live and some of the stuff on Steam, because it really allows you to directly engage with your audience. All these opportunities are opened up that you couldn’t do before – there wasn’t a model you could work around.”
Myllyrinne doesn’t think that digital distribution will kill AAA big-budget gaming, as some have alleged, either. “I don’t think the big, huge experiences are going anywhere, but the sooner we go digital as an industry, the better for everybody. Better for consumers, better for the developers and publishers.”
He admits there is one group it won’t be all that great for, however – the brick-and-mortar retailers. “Maybe [it’s] not so good for retail … but then again if you’re selling our games as used copies and incentivizing people to do that, then I don’t really feel sorry for you.”
GameStop may in fact agree – considering it bought Steam competitor Impulse back in March.
(Via Eurogamer)
