GameFly’s made some interesting movies in the last few months. They jumped into the digital distribution space last year, offering games for streaming in addition to their physical mail rentals. While that moved GameFly’s overall offering closer to that of Steam, they still relied on publishers to supply their pipelines with games. That’s going to change a bit, at least on the smartphone side.
It’s become popular at the moment to worry about the death of gaming as we know it. The meteoric rise of mobile handheld platforms certainly has been disruptive and, as Kotaku Editor-in-Chief Stephen Totilo reported earlier today, there are valid concerns about the longevity and existence of console-based gaming in the future.
According to the latest data from NPD Australia, the Australian Games Industry raked in $1.5 billion at retail in 2011, that’s a 12.8 per cent contraction compared to 2010, but that figure doesn’t account for the growth in digital sales, says Ron Curry, CEO of iGEA.
Disproving the power of packaged goods once again, Valve’s digital download platform Steam saw another year of massive growth in 2011, with sales more than doubling and the number of simultaneous users surpassing the five million mark. What gets five million people on Steam all at once?
DC Comics has been garnering lots of media buzz, heightened awareness and increased sales on the heels of its recent New 52 reboot. Along with new re-imaginings of Superman and Wonder Woman, the publisher began making digital copies of its entire line available on the same day as the print versions.
Discs-to-your-door rental service Gamefly will buy Direct2Drive from IGN, according to a report by MCV, likely expanding digital rentals’ availability over PC down the line.
