1980s Before Internet connections became widespread, there were few services for digital distribution of games, and physical media was the dominant method of delivering video games. One of the first examples of digital distribution in video games was
GameLine, which operated during the early 1980s. The service allowed
Atari 2600 owners to use a specialized cartridge to connect through a
phone line to a central server and rent a video game for 5–10 days. The GameLine service was terminated during the
video game crash of 1983. From 1987 to 2003,
Nintendo's Japan-only
Disk Writer kiosks allowed users to copy from a
jukebox style of rotating stock of the latest games to their
floppy disks. They can keep each one for an unlimited time, and play at home on the
Family Computer Disk System for , then about and 1/6 of the price of many new games. It was called "truly ground-breaking for its time and could be considered a forerunner of more modern distribution methods [such as] Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Steam". There were also examples such as Soft bender TAKERU for PCs, which also served as a distribution system for karaoke.
1990s Only a few digital distribution services for consoles would appear in the 90s. Among them were
Sega's
Sega Meganet and
Sega Channel, released in 1990 and 1994 respectively, providing
Sega Genesis owners with access to games on demand and other services. Nintendo released peripherals and services only in Japan: the
Satellaview satellite subscription service for
Super Famicom and the
Nintendo Power flash cartridge in-store kiosk system for Super Famicom and
Game Boy. On PCs, digital distribution was more prevalent. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, prior to the widespread adoption of the Internet, it was common for software developers to upload demos and
shareware to
Bulletin Board Systems. In most cases, demos or shareware releases would contain an advertisement for the full game with ordering instructions for a physical copy of the full game or software. Some developers instead used a licensing system where 'full versions' could be unlocked from the downloaded software with the purchase of a key, thereby making this method the first true digital distribution method for PC Software. Notable examples include the
Software Creations BBS and
ExecPC BBS, both of which continue to exist today – albeit in a very different form. Bulletin Board systems however were not interconnected, and developers would have to upload their software to each site. Additionally, BBSs required users to place a telephone call with a
modem to reach their system. For many users, this meant incurring long-distance charges. These factors contributed to a sharp decline in BBS usage in the early 1990s, coinciding with the rise of inexpensive Internet providers. In the mid-1990s, with the rise of the Internet, early individual examples for digital distribution under usage of this new medium emerged, although there were no significant services for it. For instance, in 1997 the video game producer
Cavedog regularly distributed additional content for the
Real-time strategy computer game Total Annihilation as Internet downloads via their website. Also, users used the Internet to distribute their own content. Without access to the
retail infrastructure that would allow them to distribute this content through physical media,
user-created content such as game
modifications, maps or
fan patches could only be distributed online.
2000s By this time, Internet connections were fast and numerous enough such that digital distribution of games and other related content became viable. The platform was sold to
GameStop in May 2011. The period between 2004 and now saw the rise of many digital distribution services on PC, such as
Amazon Digital Services,
Impulse,
GameTap,
GameStop,
Games for Windows – Live,
Origin,
Battle.net,
Direct2Drive,
GOG.com,
GamersGate and several more. The offered properties and policies differ significantly between the digital distribution services: e.g. while most of the digital distributors don't allow reselling of bought games,
Green Man Gaming allows this. In September 2003
Valve released the
Steam platform for Windows computers (later expanded to
Mac OS and
Linux) as a means to distribute Valve-developed video games. Steam has the speciality that customers don't buy games but instead get the right to use games, which might be revoked when a violation of the
End-user license agreement is seen by Valve or when a customer doesn't accept changes in the End-user license agreement. Steam began later to sell the right to play games from independent developers and major distributors and has since become the largest PC digital distributor. By 2011, Steam has approximately 50–70% of the market for downloadable PC games, with a userbase of about 40 million accounts. In 2008, the website
gog.com (formerly called
Good Old Games) was started, specialized in the distribution of older, classic PC games. While all the other DD services allow various forms of DRM (or even have them embedded)
gog.com has a strict
non-DRM policy.
Desura was launched in 2010. The service was notable for having a strong support of the
modding community and also has an
open source client, called
Desurium.
Origin, a new version of the
Electronic Arts online store, was released in 2011 in order to compete with Steam and other digital distribution platforms on the PC.
2010s Mobile gaming Digital distribution is the dominant method of delivering content on mobile platforms such as
iOS devices and
Android phones. Lower barriers to entry has allowed more developers to create and distribute games on these platforms, with the mobile gaming industry growing considerably as a result.
Console gaming Today, each of the current main consoles (
Nintendo Switch,
Xbox Series X/S, and
PlayStation 5) has its own digital distribution platform to sell games exclusive to digital formats and digital versions of retail games. These are the
Nintendo eShop,
Xbox Games Store, and
PlayStation Store, respectively, which all sell full retail games, along with other products, such as DLC.
2020s Console gaming In 2025, Nintendo introduced a software update for the
Nintendo Switch that enabled limited-time sharing of digital games and applications purchased through the
Nintendo eShop. In the same year, with the release of the
Switch 2, Nintendo also introduced a new format of the
Nintendo Game Card, known as the Game-Key Card. This format functions as a digital license, granting users the ability to download the associated game from the eShop. The card also serves as a form of ownership validation, enabling the
resale of used copies. Major game publisher
Capcom has reportedly classified sales of Game-Key Cards as "digital sales". == Implications ==