Valve’s Jason Holtman, the VP of business development, has said during a press huddle at their Seattle offices today that retail sales have in fact benefited.
He stated that ”having a connected platform on the PC is helping sales both online and in retail”, which he asserted from their recent ‘free weekend’.
Day of Defeat was offered to be played for free over a weekend, after which it was generally expected that gamers looking to purchase the game would do so through their online Steam distribution service. The gaming consumer snubbed the theory though and snubbed it good.
”What’s most interesting is that there was a spike in both types of sales - a lot of the people who played and enjoyed the free weekend took us up on the digital offer, but a lot of other people added just as normal - they went to a retail store and bought the game,” said Holtman.
”What’s particularly striking about this data, though, is that not only is there no cannibalisation, but retail sales were actually 28 per cent higher than digital sales. Not only did retail not trough, it peaked even higher than digital.”
That little miracle aside for retailers, Valve did reveal though that soon their online sales would overtake conventional retail. 191% growth year by year in online sales compared to ”sub 10 per cent growth rates” for their packaged games in shops.
Source: MCV
