Retail’s role in making MMOs a success

With more MMOs turning to the growing digital retail sector, with creators selling the game to consumers via a downloadable client, the question of how retail will fit into the future of the sector arises.

We’re in a bit of strange transition at the moment,” says Codemasters’ David Solari.

Publishers are wary of cutting out the retailers, yet realise that the majority of their audiences are online and want to download the goods themselves.

However, retailers will still have a large part to play thanks to payment methods such as game time cards or credit cards which are hugely popular in mainland Europe.”

Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka points out that retail will always be a more convenient solution for consumers: Downloadable clients take a lot of time and there is nothing more frustrating than having a disrupted connection where you will then need to start again.

But if you buy in at retail, you know you have a fully working product. You can also buy collector’s editions, with tangible objects that may have a special meaning to the players.”

Cryptic COO Jack Emmert concludes: Most of gaming, MMOs included, will be entirely digital in the next decade.”

To read MCV’s full analysis of the MMO sector, click here.