Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz' widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial is a weekly dissection of one of the issues weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer after it goes out to GI.biz newsletter subscribers.

Without the benefit of hindsight, it's tough to say where, exactly, a tipping point occurs. In years to come, we'll undoubtedly look back at this period in the games industry's history and confidently pinpoint the year, or perhaps even the quarter, when the transition became a landslide. Today, however, all we can say with any certainty is that it's either happened already, or will happen in the next two years. Freed from the realms of theory and speculation by dropping storage costs, rising broadband speeds and changing consumer attitudes, digital distribution is reaching a point of no return.

There are, of course, plenty of questions which still need to be answered - both from consumer and industry perspectives - before the digital takeover can truly get underway. Pricing, for example, remains a thorny problem, and there's a strong possibility that right-of-first-sale issues will face not only robust challenges from consumers, but also serious questions at a legal and even governmental level.

For one industry grouping, however, there's a single question which dwarfs all of those concerns. If you're a retailer, your only real question about digital distribution is straightforward - where the hell does this leave me?

More...