2008 really looked like the year of public scrutiny of the PC platform and its piracy rate as developers came out of the brush to point out how pirates were playing their games without paying. Now with digital distribution on the rise with more services giving customers more incentive and benefits other than the convenience of getting a game delivered straight to their hard drive, the industry is looking closely at the PC once again.

Stardock CEO Brad Wardell knows it, as he should since Stardock runs the digital distribution platform, Impulse. “A lot of publishers are viewing digital distribution as the thing that is going to save PC,” Wardell told Gamastura. Despite the fact that the PC is disappearing from retail shelves, the demand increases digitally with Wardell predicting digital distribution making up 25 percent of the PC market with that figure doubling in a few years.

Wardell believes that with the digital outlet increasing in competitiveness, platforms will pursue different paths giving players different offerings for using their service, which should make the platform as a whole more enjoyable to use.