Slashdot just popped up with this article, which I then clicked through and R’d the FAs.  Certainly food for thought, one that I will get into here in a minute.  Basically the debate is (just now?) coming up as to whether or not digital distribution for games is going to replace the brick-and-mortar, traditional means in the near future for PC games.

Truth be told, the brick-and-mortar shops are getting themselves beaten pretty badly on the PC games front.  Console games, not so much, but I think that it is only a matter of time until some big AAA titles are brought out solely through digital distribution for the Wii, XBox 360, and the PS3.

In the Slashdot article was a link to this blog entry here detailing one indie developer’s success with current online distributors.  I was a bit surprised by Greenhouse’s apparent lackluster interest since they seem to be geared toward the indie developers.

Capcom doing digital distribution for PC games and trying to be a leader in it … they’ve got a way to go since they are starting from scratch and have to compete with Steam, Impulse, and Greenhouse.  No matter what though, I’m glad they are finally getting more serious about the PC as a platform and will most likely do it right.

The big debate though is traditional media vs. downloads-only.  Why not offer ISOs of the discs or an optional “Buy the CD/DVD” for a few bucks on-demand?  It’s true that your average user wouldn’t know an ISO image from a Word document, but most gamers are a little bit above average at least and would know exactly what to do with it.  So what’s the problem with offering both download and ISO images to customers that buy your game?

I think there’s still some work that needs to be done on this front, but right now there are plenty of avenues online, as indicated by the Wolfire post.  Indie game makers shouldn’t even waste their time trying to get into Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or Fry’s.  You can get just as good sales numbers online through digital distribution outlets.

Heck, it’s not that much of a leap to do it yourself, provided you have a credit card processor, of which there are many.  It’s honestly not that hard to put forth the effort yourself to innovate in this area and put your game and company in a stronger position with its online presence.

EDIT: It occurred to me, after a much-needed sleep, that P2P is also another method that could be explored too, in conjunction with ISO images.  Using as much of the incumbent infrastructure out there also saves a lot of time, effort, and money.