Case Study Links- Video Games

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/08/01/the-coming-video-game-distribution-platform-wars/

This article is about the future of gaming distribution. It looks gaming is going to take the same turn as film is, in this day in age shops like blockbuster aren't doing as well as they used to, mainly  because people prefer to stream a film from their TV, PC and games console from home rather than traveling outside to go and rent a film or purchase one. Netflix and Lovefilm offer these services and they are slowly growing. Netflix has found the most success with 23 Million Subscribers in the US only. A study last year claimed that Netflix account 32.7% of Peak US internet traffic. But now the gaming industry is beginning to peak in cloud gaming.

Online game sales are expected to surpass retail sales by next year. EA have said they expect to be 100% digital in the near future. There's a leading player, which is Steam. Steam is the leading PC game distribution site with 40 million users. EA's Origin which is focused on digital distribution rather than steaming has 21 million users on PCs and mobile devices. EA believe that they can surpass Steam, and be the Facebook to Steam's MySpace. Activision couls also do this, as they own the successful franchise Call of Duty, they will be able to tie the next PC verion of COD to their own online store, this could generate millions of accounts- this is similar to what EA did with Battlefield 3 and what Valve did with Half-Life 2.

http://www.learn-cocos2d.com/2011/12/history-future-video-game-distribution/

This article is about the history and future of video game distribution. Soon boxed retail game will be a thing of the past, the same goes with Blu-Ray, it is inevitable, because video games and film are moving towards their most natural distribution media format: Instant digital home delivery. This would allow publishers to reduce risk in inventory and cut out the retail middle-man, which will allow publishes to take full control on pricing and availability .

1970s - 5.25" Floppy
1980s - 3.5" Floppy
1990s - CD-ROM
2000s - DVD- ROM
2010s - Online
2020s - Streaming

CD-ROM- 1985-2007: PC (DOS), Playstation, Dreamcast
DVD-ROM- 1996- In Use: PC(WIN), Playstation 2, Xbox
Blu-Ray- 2006- In Use: Playstation 3

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/09/games-dvd-music-downloads-piracy

From looking at this graph it is clear that the sales of Video Games have increased  dramatically, if this graph continued into 2012 I think it will show the video game sales increasing further.

http://www.gamesradar.com/a-brief-history-of-video-game-piracy/

This article gives a brief history of video game piracy, going all the way back to Nintendo Entertainment System and the spectrum. It seems however hard companies fight to stop piracy the pirates will find a way around that, and this has been the case for many years. Such as the PSP; Sony would keep on updating the psp with current firmwire to counter the pirates custom firmware