Digital distribution is here, and as GamesTM explains, the game industry is set to change

We’ve developed a fascination with German avant-garde pop singer and countertenor Klaus Nomi. His eponymous first album features two original Nomi-riffic compositions, and eight synth-laden covers of famous Sixties ditties and classical pieces. It is utterly bizarre, not to mention completely obscure these days. You won’t find it lingering in the pop/rock section of your local record shop. But we reckon that if we picked a big music seller like Virgin Megastore to investigate it, we’d probably find it. Or we could snag it from Amazon.com at a greatly reduced price. Heck, if we got really desperate, we could even purchase it (oddly enough) from Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Limbaugh Library’, an online vendor that shills products featured on Limbaugh’s show. But we don’t really feel like giving any money to that particular radio talk show host. Apply that process to a piece of videogaming esoterica, though, and things become a lot more challenging. You might be able to find it on eBay with an insane price tag attached, or perhaps – and this is a big ‘perhaps’ – you’ll happen upon it in one of the bargain bins of the countless game stores you’ve perused in your search. Basically it’s gone unless a publisher decides to release a compilation package and your game is noteworthy enough to be included. And this isn’t just games of Klaus Nomi’s vintage. 

DoubleFine’s critically adored Psychonauts came out in 2005 – as of now, it is out of print. Tim Schafer’s magnificent comeback after the LucasArts masterpiece that was Grim Fandango in 1998 is no longer being published. Little Britain: The Video Game, with a Metacritic score of 19, however, is available for customers in the UK and EU. What Psychonauts has over Little Britain – other than quality – is that it’s enjoyed new life being distributed via Valve’s online content delivery system, Steam. Any member of Steam’s 13 million and counting user base can pay a relatively nominal fee to download and play the game, and it’s advertised in Steam’s rotating ‘Store’ tab, which is analogous to a shop window. Steam is but one facet of the emerging online path to market for videogames, and is commonly known as ‘digital distribution’. Rather than being limited to what’s available on store shelves – which isn’t that much really when you consider the volume of music a Virgin Megastore can hold – gamers can now purchase and support games from the indie development industry as well as unusual triple-A titles like Psychonauts.

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