David Braben is not just anyone: the British is one of the UK’s most brilliant developers, and beyond his fundamental role in the revolutionary Elite saga , he is also one of the co-founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation , creators of the Raspberry single board computer PI. Hence, his opinion on the video game industry is not that of one more: it is that of one of the benchmarks in the British sector.
The process of physical to digital content has been accelerated
The CEO of Frontier Developments has spoken at the GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit Online about the future of physical and digital games, ensuring that the current circumstances caused by confinement and the habits acquired by players during his closure have accelerated the disappearance of the format physical. “We have seen an acceleration in the transition from the physical to the digital, ” he explained, “that ‘s a good thing . It will probably take, more or less, two to three years before the physical disappears.”
According to the GamesIndustry itself, the North American NPD and the British GFK showed a large increase in the sale of the physical game last month, caused by the forecast of confinement of the players, who launched into stores to buy games to entertain themselves with during the closure time . Braben celebrated: “We are very fortunate to be in a really great industry where, from a financial point of view, things are going really well . Sales increased, the number of players in our games increased considerably, so there is a really positive in the current circumstances. “
There is a lot of positivity towards our industry now
He clarified that “the point is that you do not want to say that everything is going great because we know that some people are having a really bad time (…) but overall, it has been quite positive for our industry.” “Historically, our industry and alcohol, ironically, have always gone up in times of recession because we are cheap entertainment . We are seen as a good port during a storm. There is a lot of positivity towards our industry right now,” the developer concluded.
Frontier Developments already shared good fiscal results during the current pandemic. The company behind Planet Zoo , Jurassic World Evolution or Elite Dangerous itself is currently one of the UK’s most prolific firms.
