DIGITAL RETAILER PROFILES: GAMEFLY/GOG.COM HIGH FLYERS
Rental firm GameFly stormed into the digital space when it acquired Direct2Drive last year
DIRECT2DRIVE makes its bold return to the UK thanks to US ecommerce giant Gamefly. After being acquired by Gamefly, given a new name and a shiny new downloadable client, the digital retail platform has returned to our shores. “We started seriously thinking about digital 18 months ago and how Gamefly will manage the transition from physical to digital,” said Gamefly’s Sean Spector. “We were quite far along in this when IGN approached us. Buying D2D got us to where we want to be much faster. D2D was also the No.2 digital retailer behind Steam in a lot of territories.” Gamefly.co.uk launched in January. Its new client connects to social networks and has a look that’s akin to iTunes.
OLD GOG, NEW TRICKS
MCV looks at how GOG.com is breaking away from its original retro mentality
GOG.COM is expanding its remit to go beyond back catalogue games, bringing its appealing price points and DRM-free model to the latest releases.
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Established: 2002 Based: Santa Monica, California Key Territories: US, UK Contact: +1 310 664 6400 www.gamefly.co.uk
“In our minds, GOG.com no longer stands for Good Old Games,” says GOG MD Guillaume Rambourg. “It doesn’t matter what the letters stand for anymore: the company stands for only the best DRM-free downloadable PC games.” This was demonstrated by the release of The Witcher 2. GOG sold more copies than any other digital retailer – aside from Steam. “It gave us proof that DRM-free is the right approach towards gamers,” says Rambourg. “In fact, the most pirated version was the copy-protected retail SKU, not our DRM-free version.”