Hm, good point.
It is true that traditional retail puts a lot of limits on emerging digital retail, but I hadn't considered that traditional retailers have been putting limits on each other for quite some time.
Still, there's a much wider gulf between Steam and Wal-mart than there is between Wal-mart and some rural local reseller. And the limitations often show up not just in availability, but also pricing and sometimes content. It's frustrating when the full potential of a new technology can't be tapped for fear that it will usurp the old ways.
Especially when the new technology already comes with its own limitations. Digital is already limited by its lack of a physical artifact and its non-transferable license, why should it also be hobbled by physical retail's pricing and availability? Nobody has (yet) locked game discs to a single user account because doing otherwise would be unfair to digital retailers.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
