It’s alarming how quickly digital sales of console games have started to pick up – just the other week, Activision confirmed that 50% of Destiny 2 sales on console were digital. It made me wonder – if digital sales are rising so steeply, how long have video game stores got left? Surely there will come a point – probably very soon – when it won’t be viable to continue selling physical copies of games. And game stores have already been hit hard by competition from internet retailers.

I pitched the idea for a feature to GamesRadar+, and after a huge amount of research, where I spoke to financial analysts, GAME and scores of indie retailers, the article below is the result:

How long have video game stores actually got left (and can they save themselves)?

It was a huge amount of work, and I’m pretty proud of the result, even if it makes for depressing reading. Still, there is a ray of hope – there’s a good chance that the decline in the physical retail market will eventually plateau, so some shops could have a future. But in the meantime, expect to see lots of game stores closing in the years ahead.