GameStop waves off alternative forms of retail until 2020
Building upon assurances delivered several weeks ago, GameStop COO Dan DeMatteo continued his utter disregard for the impending retail crisis as the gaming industry steadily shifts to digital distribution. "The first digital distribution was Napster and it was illegal. Let's just start there," DeMatteo began his lesson to GameDaily. "The software publishers are afraid to death of piracy. Once a full game is lying on a hard drive, there's the potential for piracy. Aside from the games, the bandwidth, etc., our studies have concluded that the network won't be in place to do digital distribution of full games until 2020 to 2025." And by then, well, it'll be too late. Even conservative projections place GameStop in control of the global marketplace by 2017.
The important thing, DeMatteo reminds publishers, is to keep selling your games to GameStop. After all, he claims, Microsoft and Sony take a big cut when you go direct through consoles. Plus, GameStop guarantees it'll sell a single copy of your game at least three times. Er, wait a minute ... you're not supposed to hear that part.
