Can a game, which is availalbe to purchase only through the internet, sell as much as a game sold in real stores? Or does a game sold in the internet "automatically" sell less then if it would be sold in stores? What do you think?

... or even better: sell both in stores AND the Internet.
HalfLife2 does that, and probably many, many, more..

EDIT: Oh ok, with WoW they ship the box to you.. HL2 can be downloaded through Steam though

[Edited by - DaBono on August 2, 2005 8:01:31 AM]

By selling on the internet I ment that the customer purchase a download and not a CD shipped to him.

It all depends on the type of game and how well it is marketed to point customers in the right direction....if they don't know it's there (through £'s of advertising in magazines and on the net, etc) then it generally might not sell as well as in the shops (where it's placed for all to see).

If you had a multi-million $ marketing budget (the same as FIFA and GTA etc) and a big, high quality, e-commerce site/opperation then you could probably sell lots and lots of units - but the same money spent on getting the game into retail would likely sell more because (for most people) buying at retail is still easier/prefered. Of course if you could afford that sort of online opperation then you could afford to put the game in retail too.

Retail costs more than online. If you can afford to go retail (and your product is good enough) then do it. If you can't afford it then there is no point in worrying about if online will sell as well as retail.

HL2 disappointed me a little as far as the whole internet distribution was concerned. Overall, it was not really cheaper to get it online than it was to buy it in the store. And me personally, I would rather have the physical copy.