Has digital distribution made games cheaper? Uh, no. But lots of people thought it would. That’s not the only myth surrounding the digital delivery of games: the idea persists that selling your games online will be a way to get around the dominance currently enjoyed by big publishers in the bricks-n-mortar retail sector. Well, according to Mark Rein, that’s all a load of codswallop:
Digital distribution is not a replacement for a publisher…They’ll be paying for marketing just like they do for positioning in a store. The big publishers are going to own the front of those online stores.
Were I a small-time developer, that would be terribly depressing, but since I’m not, I will admit it does sound like a fairly predictable scenario.
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