A title that made me wonder: there are more PC games bought in stores than online. I thought that just in my region could happen such a thing, because people (especially mature, over 40 years old) don`t have that much trust in online transactions.
In fact, the game between the tradition way of promoting games, the concrete DVDs and the new media promoting strategy (online discounts and downloads) is still hot and promises to deliver benefits for you.
If you can believe it, the difference between them is so fragile, that you can almost ask yourself what`s the point of being statistics on this theme, after all it`s important that people buy games and don`t go for pirated products. Anyhow, for the sake of arts, let`s see the official facts: during 2009 more than 21 millions of units of full-game digital downloads were registered, while more than 23 millions of units were sold by retailers. Personally, these figures tell me that with a much aggressive marketing strategy, we will soon become addicted to online legal downloads, feature that will surely delight our pockets and commodity. Downloading your favorite game means using your free time for something real important than roving to the next games store and, probably, the most important part: you can save some dollars, if you choose this method. Although the amount you save is little, about 5-10$, think that buying all the games released in one month, you will gain some good dollars for yourself.
All, there are two tops established for the most profitable retailers at this moment. The first one is focused on Frontline digital retailers (meaning that they usually sell on internet games that can be found in retail stores too): SteamPowered.com, Direct2Drive.com, Blizzard.com, EA.com, WorldofWarcraft.com. As you can observe, this list is led by important companies that are also the producers of the games released on market. It`s quite easy and successful for them to sell directly games to fans.
On the other side, the Casual digital retailers (meaning that they actually sell accessible and cheaper games), present companies that are just distributors of games: Bigfishgames.com, Pogo.com, Gamehouse.com, iWin.com, RealArcade.com.
This study was established on a representative population for US, between 13-17 years old.
Big differences between the members of the two tops aren`t that big. If you compare the site of EA with that of Pogo, you will see that the promotional contents are almost the same: you can play online for free on both sites, so you won`t miss that much. The fact is that EA will present you its own noble creations (Medal of Honor or Alice: Madness Returns), while Pogo will offer you modest and popular games as Monopoly or Scrabble. The choice belongs to you!
