Luminous

We are currently seeing an advent of services popping up everywhere on the series of tubes known as the interents for selling media, such as Direct2Drive, iTunes, Steam, and the various download services found on consoles(PSN, XBL, WiiWare). Heck, I've even heard about a service coming to the DS in Japan called Vision that is supposed to bring a variety of mediums to the portable.(Anime, books, movies, etc...).

PC Gaming as an example. Due to piracy, sales of PC titles have almost dropped off. However, Steam, Valve's digital distribution for PC games is bringing in loads of money, and developers are quickly flocking to it as a great means of selling a game. The prices are a lot lower, since you bypass the costs associated with making boxes, discs, and so forth. With these competitive prices, we are seeing higher sales of products that would usually fail if sent to the Gamestops of the world.


So, here in lies the questions of the debate. Is the future of media firmly planted in the power of digital distribution? Are the days of music CDs and movie DVDs fast dissapearing in the rear view mirror? Will the trend of artists and developers moving to the world wide web for selling products continue, or will the love of having the product in a physical form outlast this system? Will piracy continue to be an issue if convenient downloads at far cheaper prices are available? Or will this so far successful form of distribution fall flat on it's face?

Well, those are just a couple questions to muse over for discussion, feel free to add more, respond to one of them, or just add a opinion. What doth AO think of this new fangled way of selling products?

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