Numbers of gamers wanting to get their games "in that direction" are rising; makes perfect sense for World of Warcraft. Doubts retail "would ever go away".
"I think you’re just seeing a shift in consumer behaviour, where people are slowly becoming more digitally distribution aware and wanting to get their games in that direction,” Blizzard boss Rob Pardo said at BlizzCon.
“I think it makes a lot of sense for World of Warcraft, because, by definition, everyone who plays World of Warcraft is online already. They’re already receiving very large patches – I think we’re now delivering 4Gb patches to our userbase – and, for them, downloading the game digitally just makes a lot of sense.” Retail unlikely to die off.
“I doubt if retail would ever go away, or anything. I wouldn’t predict anything like that,” he added. “But I do think it’s going to become increasingly a way that gamers want to go and get their games.” A strong retail presence is still vital today.
“It’s really good for us to have lots and lots of boxes on the store shelves because it’s a great way to market the game, and it’s really great for when people come into the store to make an impulse buy,” he said.
“So we’re still really behind the retail chains too.” Pardo himself prefers to buy PC games digitally so he doesn't have to deal with discs piling up. Blizzard has teased they've got some pretty big plans for World of Warcraft's fourth expansion.
