John Carmack, co founder of id Software and the developer behind Doom and Quake has spoken out, declaring that boxed copies of games will vanish sooner or later, predicting that the future lies in digital distribution.
In an interview with the Telegraph , Carmack said "Clearly, packaged goods sales are still critical on the big platforms at this stage, but that's all going to go away sooner or later,"
The programmer sees the future in systems like Apple's Appstore, saying "You don't have to cut deals with publishers. It's almost completely egalitarian on there." adding that "It is the wave of the future for everything. Everybody knows that eventually will be digital distribution like this – it's only a question of time. This is the model of the future."
Carmack is currently working on Rage , a post apocalyptic shooter based on the new id Tech 5 engine, which he helped to build. What do you think, can you see discs dying out?
Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
