It seems like every week I'm talking more and more about the state of digital distribution so why stop now? This week CEO of Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford criticizes Steam for being a digital distribution service run by a a game developer. In his view Steam, run by game developer Valve, has a conflict of interest. Any digitial distribution service is going to take a little off the top for being the middle man. Don't they have the power, then, to hinder competition by charging more for competing games than they would for their own?
Pitchford recognizes the value of digital distribution but argues that the real value in any distribution service, even B&M stores, is whether a consumer feels that the distributor is interested solely in serving them, that is, giving them what they want rather than trying to push their own product.
Then again this may be a moot point as it seems that everyone is able to get in on a little digdis action. With Amazon joining the ranks of online and B&M retailers selling download codes for the PSN (and others) it seems your options for purchasing games are no more limited than they were in the days of pure physical media. The big question now is what kind of wholesale price do these distributors make and how much leeway do they have in lowering prices to create a competitive environment? I doubt any industry insiders will be giving us those numbers any time soon.
At least the high mucky-mucks aren't leaving us to fend for ourselves. The London Games Conference will host speakers on digdis which they are calling the biggest issue facing the games industry today. I'll try to keep updated on the proceedings - apparently this isn't something that's going to evaporate any time soon.
Switching gears a bit the aforementioned CEO of Gearbox has also spilled the beans about achievements. Apparently there's such a large culture of achievement (and by extension, trophy) whores that toning down the difficulty on your game's achievements is likely to net you thousands of additional sales. I wrote about the potential downside of trophies back when they were first added to the PSN. By and large my views haven't changed, but now that there's a tangible financial incentive to include trophies I hope that developers won't view them as a shortcut to higher sales in favor of developing better gameplay ideas. Trophies and achievements are strictly meta-game rewards and it would do well for developers to remember that and not think that a new set of achievements or an update that adds trophies is a legitimate tool for increasing the value of their games. Ultimately this mentality is more about marketing that moving the industry forward.
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