John Carmack, the technical director and one of the co founders of id Software, has stated that digital distribution for video games and other forms of content will dominate the future even though at the moment packaged physical sales are still driving the industry.
John Carmack has said that, “I really, really like the App Store platform as far as being able to remove obstacles to getting your product out”, before adding that digital distribution as a concept “is the wave of the future for everything.”
He added, “You don’t have to cut deals with publishers. It’s almost completely egalitarian on there. It’s great to see all the small teams that wind up making these breakout hit games for the Apple devices. The fact is; on this platform, we can go ahead deal with fifteen-a-day feedback on there and directly interact with the consumers, make changes and get things out.”
Carmack has acknowledged that at the moment video game publishers make most of their money from retail packages but that is slowly changing as customers see the advantages of picking up games online through services like Steam, GamersGate or Direct2Drive, and might get a significant push if Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, the three big makers of gaming consoles, decide to make their video games available via digital distribution through propriety services.
id Software and Carmack have experienced digital distribution with RAGE HD, the on rails shooters which the company has launched for Apple devices as a preview for the full first person game it plans to launch during 2011.
RAGE is set to arrive on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC on September 13 of 2011 and the game looked very polished when I saw it in action at Gamescome during this year.
The game marks the first use of the new id Tech 5 game engine, which id will then share with other developers.
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