West No Longer Understands PC Retail Market, Says 1C Executive

One of the uncontested truths of the video game market is that PC gaming is no longer attractive to retail outlets, which devote much less space for titles on the platform than years ago, which means that the sales have largely shifted to the digital space.

Darryl Still, who is the United Kingdom publishing director for 1C, has told CVG as part of an interview that PC games sales are healthy still and that retail stores have only managed to loose business by driving PC game lovers to digital distribution services like Steam, Impulse or Gamersgate.

He recalled how a retailer told him that a certain game would only sell 30 retail copies in the United Kingdom.

Darryl said, “At that time I had my digital sales reporting tool open, which tracks download sales instantly as they happen, I hit refresh and informed our partner: 'In the few seconds that's it has taken you to explain there is only demand for 30 units in the UK, we have sold twice as many as that digitally.'”

One 1C published title that has been very successful lately was King's Bounty, the re-imagined mix between turn based strategy and adventure, and that game had a very small impact in stores before managing to sell more than 250,000 copies on Steam.

Darryl believes, “But had it not been for the digital breakthrough we would still be running at one per cent of where we are today.”

The game recently received a Game of the Year Edition for the latest Crossworlds content that is available in normal retail stores.

One loss linked to the move to digital distribution is that it's no longer possible to deliver extra physical content in game boxes.

One recent report says that in the long term digital distribution, alongside mobile gaming and online titles, will be a threat to brick and mortar stores and to new console development.