It’s no secret that the sale of physical media has declined. CD sales have dropped 18.5 percent last year, prompting massive entertainment retail chain, Best Buy, to pull CD’s from its store shelves on July 1, 2018. And DVDs aren’t doing too hot either, with the sale of DVDs falling to 14 percent last year. It should come as no surprise, as streaming has become the method of choice for most people to consume their media, and it seems the popularity of streaming – or, more specifically, digitally downloading – is starting to impact physical video game media in a very real, very negative way. According to a new report by Piper Jaffray Companies, video game distribution will be 100 percent digital by 2022.
Michael J. Olson and Yung Kim of Piper Jaffray have gathered data to compare the physical and digital gaming markets. The data revealed that the physical market is steadily shrinking at approximately 10 points per year. Piper Jaffray commented on this data, saying, “We believe it is a certainty that video games will be ~100% digital in the coming years, and while exact timing is hard to pinpoint, we think 2022 is a realistic expectation.” The report also discusses how additional factors, like the shift towards subscription and streaming models, could lead to a ?higher recurring revenue mix? for publishers. “Our expectation is that major publishers will increasingly test and commercially develop streaming game offerings ove...