GU Comics by: Woody Hearn

In a recent interview with GameDaily Dan DeMatteo espoused his views on digital distribution. The Gamestop CEO expressed his belief that "the network won't be in place to do digital distribution of full games until 2020 to 2025" claiming that "right now, a 30GB game with your best T1 line is about 72 hours to [download] it." Mr. DeMatteo also warns that digital distribution will yield publishers less money from sales. [more info] In an email response, Earthworm Jim developer Dave Perry accused DeMatteo of confusing investors and worked to counter everything DeMatteo had to say.
Source: 1Up.Com [ more info ]

We here at GU are used to gaming big wigs spouting off at the mouth. But, DeMatteo's comments on digital distribution left me rolling my eyes, shaking my head, and muttering obscenities. It's like he took everything that was accurate and deliberately said the opposite. Then of course, Dave Perry waltzed in with a bucket of common sense and started dumping it liberally over DeMatteo's nonsense.

You know I get that DeMatteo probably feels a bit threatened by digital distribution. If the technology proves successful (which it already has in my opinion), his business goes under. Though, honestly, you know as well as I do that when he finally "gets it" and sees the proverbial writing on the wall, he'll hop on the bandwagon and proudly announce that Gamestop is launching thier own digital distribution network.

By the way... the caricature of DeMatteo is horrible. Just saying.

Edited to add:
Apparently Gamestop already supports digital distribution as the option is made available by way of TryMedia's ActiveStore application. And DeMatteo missed this how?

[ discuss ] - replies ( 40 ) last post by: talia