According to Gamefly co-founder, Sean Spector, it is highly unlikely that we are going to see many more, if any, competitors to Origin, Steam and Gamefly.
His reasoning is that publishers aren’t great fans of digital retailers and it takes a lot of effort to prepare a game for each digital publisher and with the top retailers having already cornered the market it doesn’t make sense to republish with smaller digital retailers.
From my side I wasn’t aware that there would be much in the way of costs releasing to new digital retailers and if the publishers are hesitant to support new retailers there is obviously a case to answer in regards to collusion and then ultimately price fixing.
It’s not good for the industry to be cornered by 2 digital retailers because lets face it Gamefly doesn’t come into the equation for anyone living in South Africa.
Though on the other hand I can’t see Activision not secretly developing their own digital retailer and just allowing Valve and Steam to corner a highly profitable market.
In an ideal world BT Games, kalahari and the rest could open digital retailers to accompany their current offerings but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be a viable option right now.
Last Updated: April 26, 2012
