Quote Originally Posted by Darkman2K5 View Post
Those are different circumstances. Digital makes sense for smartphones because no one is going to make physical gaming media that plugs into a phone. Of course iTunes gift cards are popular, its the number music digital distribution platform. I don't think the market will ever be all digital. There seems to be a different expectation for digital games vs. retail games. You don't expect a $5 Xbox Live arcade game to stack up against a $60 retail disc game.

Thats not to say there aren't quality digital only games, I just mean that its a different market. I can see how digital distribution would make sense as far as the instant gratification factor goes, but when it comes to gamers, I think the vast majority prefers having an actual product on their shelf. I mean, look at Digital Press, its built around an entire community of gamers who are like that.
I am one of many lifelong gamers that have been a part of the gaming (and physical game collecting) communities since the earliest generations of home gaming who resents being told that digital-download-only gamers are somehow a "different segment/market" of the gaming world.

While there are plenty of gamers that are arbitrarily showing resistance/denying the validity of that segment of the market, there's also plenty of overlap between those who enjoy buying games on physical media and those who enjoy buying digitally.

Prior to the iOS App Store and the Android Marketplace even existing - Steam had several years of wild (and continuing) success as a digital distribution market and not many people ever seemed to complain about the lack of physical media/packaging there.