Paradox Interactive CEO Talks Digital Distribution

30 Jul 2010 at 00:19:53 by Peter Parrish

Fredrik Wester, CEO of the Swedish strategy gaming masters Paradox Interactive, has given an interview to GameSetWatch in which he discusses the future of digital distribution.

Wester knows the digital download business, being an original founder of GamersGate. He's still a minority owner of that company, but is now "not operationally involved at all."

"You're going to see a lot of [digital distribution] portals closing in the coming two years," Wester said "Within two years, we'll see who's staying in the business and who's not, and the smaller ones will probably be bought by the bigger ones."

He also offered an interesting view (though one unsupported by any data) on the ability of digital distribution to combat piracy: "Online is quickly gaining ground on the number of [games] sold, and I think a lot of pirates have been converted into paying customers as well by services like Steam."

"It's not very visionary to say that the future is downloadable games - of course it is - but the way it will shape up is basically being decided right now."

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