he internet has rapidly changed how we play games with our friends, but soon may be the only way we receive games as well.

As internet speeds rise in developed countries, businesses of all kinds have turned to the internet to either reinvent their business or make it thrive. The film, music and games industry have all made small leaps into the world of digital downloads, however, their attempts have not been without consumer concerns.

Piracy is a huge problem in the eyes of publishers and developers alike. They see any loss of revenue by individuals getting 'something for nothing' as unacceptable. For decades now, they've enforced strict copy protection schemes on games which include such measures as inputting product keys on installation or CD validation when the game starts. Unfortunately, none of these measures have stopped rampant priacy of video games and even some game consoles that are

'closed platforms' -- meaning that they can only make games for that console for if a developer acquires a licence from the console maker -- have all but failed to stop piracy, only curve it's reach slightly. Meaning that highly complicated and technical work-arounds are required to play non-authentic disc media on the console.

All the major consoles now have download services to distribute online content to the masses. The Xbox 360 has the Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Originals services, Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable have the Playstation Network and the Wii and DSi have respected online stores.

These services download games to consoles hard disk drives, but offer are only playable on just one console (the console it's downloaded to) or many, however, only if played on the user (connected to the internet) it was downloaded for originally.

Draconian measures such as this has meant that Microsoft have been able to keep piracy of Xbox Live Arcade games at bay. However, sticking restrictive DRM on a game doesn't ensure a game's safety against piracy. Nintendo had firm DRM policies in place for the Wii and it's Virtual Console and WiiWare software titles. However, things fell flat for almost a year where piracy of downloadable tiles sky rocketed.

The industry has motivation to spread it's wings into digital distribution, though. Publishers and the second-hand market have never saw eye-to-eye. They also see this as losing money, as once the game is sold to someone, they can then sell the game on again to stores or to friends with no money coming back to the publisher and developer for that second exchange.

Many claim this is why recent PC games such as 2K's BioShock and EA's Spore games held silly DRM policies such as the ability to install the game to only 5 machines. With digital download games, a similar anti-resale policy is enforced. DRM only permits that download to be used by one person, the person who downloads it. Once you've bought it, it's 'yours' but yours alone.

There's a whole debate to be had about the rights you have with digital media, but other than getting money from sales, it's also a lot cheaper to distribute games online. No packaging to be made, no printed manuals required, no expensive Blu-Ray discs needed to be presses and if the worst comes to worst and there's a delay, it can be resolved in hours instead of days. Sometimes even in minutes.

But you will also have to take into account the knock-on effects of the no-physical-game approach. Shops and distributors would all be impacted.

E-Commerce itself hasn't quite come anywhere near defeating physical retail, as much as everyone was saying it would. So why would physical retail go the way of the Dodo if games suddenly became distributed solely on the internet? Simple, because if there's no physical games to sell, the major draw for consumers is suddenly pulled from their feet. Sure, this is a crazy doomsday look at the future of the video game industry, but don't think publishers wouldn't go there to protect their revenue streams.



At the moment, however, games consoles are quite limiting in what downloadable titles must be. Current file-size restrictions means that a full retail game, consuming the maximum capacity of the most common disc media, would have to be 36 times smaller to adhere to the Xbox Live Arcade's 250MB limit. And would have to be a whopping 96 times smaller for the Nintendo Wii's download service. With these figures glaring you in the face, it's easy to see why many developers do not digitally distribute games through these already existing distribution platforms.

Consoles like the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii have restrictive memory capacities as well. The most common hard disk size for the Xbox 360 is just 20GB, where as the Wii is limited to 4.2GB with aid of a 4GB SD card.

So are console makers treating digital distros seriously? Perhaps, but it sure wasn't in mind when they went ahead and made the current generation of consoles. The only company in the position to reach out and grab the digital download market by the horns is Sony with the Playstation 3. However, may be a little reluctant to after they were basically forced (by public demand) to release physical copies of games released originally only on the Playstation Network, Siren: Blood Curse for example.

Digital downloads are most definitely the future, but don't think that physical media will just vanish over night or if at all. The games industry refuses to acknowledge that any piracy prevention will be cracked and pirates refuse to admit damage they're causing. A dangerous stalemate which will continue to keep physical discs and consoles the only 'safer' choice for the near future...