14 DAY TRIAL // Many industry watchers thought that the ongoing digital revolution will be a tough challenge for physical retailer GameStop but Mike Mauler, who is an executive vice president at the company, says that it plans to expand in the area and make it a focus of development.
Speaking at the London Games Conference the executive said, “Digital is complimentary to our business, and growing the industry. What’s good for the industry is good for retail.”
He says that GameStop will become the middleman, showing off and convincing gamers to pick up digital content in stores, something that it can do because players who come in to purchase games interact with clerks and can be persuaded to expand their purchase horizon.
Mauler believes that the digital games market will reach a value of 35 billion dollars (25.6 billion Euro) in 2014, which is an increase of 75 percent when compared to the current state of the market.
For comparison purposes the console market is estimated to stay flat during the same period, at a 50 billion dollars value (36.7 billion Euro).