The game industry is definitely changing as the times move forward. One of the biggest changes in terms of game distribution is the appearance of online stores, owned by game publishers, like Valve, or console producers, like Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo, which offer players the very easy opportunity of downloading their games, without them having to go to the classic stores.

A lot of critics and analysts say that the future of the whole game distribution industry are these online stores, as all of them have a huge popularity, and people are beginning to realize that going to regular game stores, like GameStop or Target, isn't more advantageous than accessing the online ones. The companies that own these digital stores are really promoting them through special offers or different kinds of services, like preloading, which really attract users.

Classic store owners haven't really had any reason to worry about these online competitors, and Tony Bartel, the vice president of GameStop, recently declared that his company didn't see these digital stores as rivals. He went on saying that a small part of game sales resulted from online distribution, and that the stores had an ace up their sleeve, as employees could easily explain to customers what a game was about in terms they understood.

"About 2 percent of the entire console market is downloaded today, and that's growing at a rate that's slightly less than the actual boxed product on video games. There's very little of the full game download that is actually taking place on the console side. What we see is that the games are incredibly complex, and with the complexity—and especially with the investment that they actually have as well both in terms of time and money—we actually see that there is an increased need for someone to explain the game."

Some very interesting statements, which can surely get a lot of classic game store owners to relax a bit. While online stores are beginning to become more and more popular, there is still a long road ahead until they can become a worthy rival to the classic ones. Let's just hope that it will all be to the customer’s advantage here, as the stores battle for his money through various promotions or bundles.