There’s much ado about digital distribution, especially considering that this is the week of the Game Developer’s Conference. It’s been a clash of ideologies all year, with various developers throwing verbal jabs towards the retailers, and retailers defending their position in the industry as positive and basically unchallengeable. One of the biggest threats to strain this relationship even further is the growth of downloable content on the part of developers/publishers with their games, something that can often circumvent retail streams altogether. There seems to exist some sort of looming countdown to when the game creators will ultimately pull their plug on retail support and find solace in the packet streams sailing on the digital seas. This strain has already caused significant falling outs with developers in the retail sector, with some chains not supporting recent games due to the fact that they required digital authentication before you were able to play. And the influence that retailers have has also allowed them to still benefit from digital content, selling online points and even full game copies; GTA IV: The Lost & The Damned was available to purchase in store via a special card, something that allowed retailers to cash in on the online only special.

The technology certainly exists to allow the developers to hit the switch, but with all the posturing and timelines that are set, there seems to be no understood path on how to get there. I’ve talked about the limitations of next-gen before, citing that the digital divide and the lack of support from ISPs not only for existing customers, but for those who don’t even have access to any high speed internet services in North America, the world’s biggest gaming market. A lot of the retail sector exists as a platform of distribution for those who are unfamiliar with digital systems, or those without any access.

One of the biggest pressing issues with downloadable games comes with the concept of instant gratification, though not quite as greedy. It’s not unfair to say that once you’ve put your money towards a product that it should be ready to be used right away, especially in the entertainment industry. When you buy a DVD, you bring it home and through it into the player and it works. The same goes for music, and even downloading via online music stores doesn’t take up a significant amount of time. With games it is a different story, for those having to download any games requiring over 15 GB of data, it may be a day’s wait or longer before you are able to boot the system up and actually get to enjoy it. For users salivating to get a taste of the experience, especially given that many games can be pre-downloaded before release date, it isn’t necessarily an issue, but it is a huge hurdle for anyone who wants to go the simplest route between them and having fun. Right now, that route is retail, and while games are becoming available through services like the PlayStation Store and various PC distribution channels, it doesn’t satisfy that browse-and-buy attitude that allows product to move quickly and take advantage of impulse buying.

With downloading media, being able to play the product before it is fully downloaded is something that allows it to be sustainable in certain sectors. Netflix does this with film, iTunes does this with music and television, and Awomo is a new game service that is trying to do the same thing. Citing Tomb Raider Legend as their example, the game is over 7 GB in size but only requires under 700 MB in order to play, so just under 10%. The provider stresses that this is not the case for all games, as some developers utilize files and pieces that can’t be simply shoved into the front of the line, and requires a different way of approaching your game design in order to pull off. It is something that game developers should be considering if they really want to stress the move into the digital landscape.

Allowing customers to have their game in a relatively short time is possibly the biggest hurdle for digital distribution, beyond establishing internet connections in general. The gaming consumer base is beyond that of the devotee with hours of up time and the highest of speeds bandwidth connections, and when you consider that event the Xbox 360′s in the US have millions of users who do not utilize any online service, there is still a lot to be said about the strength of retail. Moving gaming into more digitally digestible chunks is one of the biggest steps, though, and services like Awomo have given the oft-praised services like Steam and Direct2Drive a run for their money in terms of innovation and solid movements towards a digital future.