Retail is totally dead. Just today, I downloaded a ham sandwich, a pair of jeans and a case of beer.

Really though, as far as gaming is concerned, retail is dieing but wont be completely out of the picture for years. There is far to many people with slow internet. Also a growing movement TOWARDS bandwidth caps. That combined with the people who dont yet trust digital distribution or just like owning a hard copy, will ensure that retail game sales are here for a while longer.

No

Gamestop I avoid that place like bad bud.....it is like a geek reunion in there....when I got the move...dude kept telling me about the kinect coming out soon do you wanna pre-order...c'mon son just ring me up....I got the psp go last week and same story ...dude trying to tell me how psp 3000 is better and I can't get this new game blah blah blah even after I told him nah I'm cool this is for my 4yr. Old son that was with me...he kept going I wanted to slap this revenge of the nerds geek....I'm done with gamestop I started buying my games from wal-mart they just ring you up and you keep it moving ....only got the psp go...cause it was $150 at gamestop...I notice a lot of the ppl in gamestop are getting some used xbox game...and look let just say trashy and that is being modest .....Sony needs a apple like store with high end gadgets...gamestop fails....

I wish they would in Australia they overprice everything and deserve a unattended funeral.

no but the creativity of some "journalists" is...

Well both yes and no. Retailers such as Gamestop, Game etc with physical stores will eventually disappear or become very rare. I see no reason to why people won't start ordering physical copies of their games online instead of going to a store. It is cheaper, and people are always looking for ways to save money. I mean, why pay $60 or 60 euros or similar in a store, when its available on for example amazon for $50 or even $40 with delivery-cost included.

Ive stopped shopping at Gamestop a long time ago. Back in the day Funcoland was amazing. The last time I entered Gamestop I was surrounded by piles of used games and couldn't for the life of me find a new copy. To which then I was givin a 10 min speech from the Clerk on why I should pre-order,reserve, pick up a guide, trade in ect ect. Every time I said no, the Clerk just continued to push his sales pitch harder. For a moment I thought I was in Mexico being pushed in to sales.

Needless to say that was the last time. I stick to Bestbuy and better yet, Amazon.

*No offence to Gamestop employees, I understand your just doing your job.*

I prefer having physical media, but i do own downloads.

I shop exclusively at Amazon and Steam for games. I actually shop at Amazon for everything else too.

Lol...in my country where even a 1mbps connection is rare...Digital Download will never work for at least 10 to 15 years..even that is doubtful..
I love Retail stores....we get the game and no waiting for downloads...

Retail isn't dead but in decline.
To survive it must adapt.I prefer a store with people as opposed to a domain with personas.
Having said that,a savings of 30% is enough to ignore the local retailer.

Funny, article sounds like some PR rep trying to push digital downloads instead of hard copies.

I always like having physical copies of a game.

Is retail dead? Obviously not. Decent Gaming Journalism is dead and buried.

Retail is almost completely dead PC wise (only reason why I shop retail PC is because my apartment complex has me locked into their ISP and downloading 1 gig + files takes hours on end.). Console wise, retail will become extinct, just other factors will determine when.

People say retail won't die, but content delivery has always changed and evolved. No one thought Blockbuster in the 90's would be in the position it is in today. Couple a business model with unpopular items (late fees and billing), absurd return times and a new, cheaper, alternative and Blockbuster is in serious problems. Even after closing more stores, they are still encourage folks to push Blockbuster's alternative a la Redbox, then dismissing the persons encouraging the alternative.

Once word gets around to the industry that digital distribution isn't just some far fetched way the gasping for breath PC Industry (which isn't the case, the notion of PC Gaming dying has simply been perpetuated by those who have a vested interest in it failing), it will catch on. Gamestop talks of being interested in digital content delivery, but it really is just a middleman trying to act as a wedge between Sony and Microsoft to protect it's main source of profit (used games). If it came down to a war between Steam and Gamestop, Steam wins due to the way it can move massive amounts of games and its reputation. Gamestop could try to flounce out the funny commercials, but people would eventually see through it and the excessively high profit margins.

Until console sellers realize that we won't pay more for a virtual copy of a game that is stuck on our hard drive as opposed to a physical copy with resale value, then retail will still be alive.

Now the author may not have gone into a retail store very often. And the online retail space for Games has vastly improved its sales as of late. That hardly says that retail is dead. With over 7k Gamestops WW and an average of 1.5 stores opening each day, Walmart, Bestbuy, Frys, Target, ToysRUs and just about every other retail outlet that caries any kind of electronic carrying some sort of game, Retail sales for games is hardly out the window, and will be around for a LONG time to come.

I personally buy most of my used games on Ebay.ca and when I truely want a game "right F* now" I got retail. I will rarely buy from say gamestop.ca since they use UPS for Canada and UPS are a bunch assh0les.