InstantAction's Louis Castle

I think we'll dramatically change the game. I don't think we will eliminate it, no more so than we would eliminate bricks and mortar. My approach is to avoid them, because they don't add value, they add friction between the consumer and the content that's been created. Just like piracy adds business friction between the content creators and the consumer, because they create a free marketplace that makes it very challenging to conduct business.

Those things are friction that I think we're going to help to eliminate. But we won't be the only thing. OnLive does a very good job of doing both as well, for example. They have their own issues, but our system is far from perfect. There's no perfect solution yet.

I'm always the optimist. I always think it's going to happen sooner than I think. When I joined InstantAction a year ago, I was expecting major upheaval within that year, and it hasn't happened yet. But the signs of it happening are getting more and more frequent and closer and closer to the bone, as it were.

I don't even think it's five years out. I think it's just a few years out. In my worst-case scenario it would be five years. In my best-case scenario for the consumer, it's happening within a year, maybe two, where you'll see almost everybody would prefer to go play the game for free somewhere, download it incrementally and buy it in pieces or through some other microtransaction, than the few people that will actually go to the Best Buys, GameStops and Wal-Marts of the world.

I think those will still be sold. Just like, essentially you don't really buy World of Warcraft at a store. You buy the installation disc. The game is the game. You're paying for a subscription. I think that same model we'll find prevalent around the world on all games.

It could happen this fall if we can get the deal put together with Activision, quite frankly. Are you listening Bobby?

They all want it. In fairness to the publishers, our system, we just launched it with Secret of Monkey Island. We changed everything about InstantAction. We built it upon the base we had before. I think those are some of the issues they're concerned about: can we go to scale? These are precious gems they have.

I understand why nobody wants to put their brand out there unless they're absolutely certain it's going to work and it's going to be a great consumer experience. It's thrust upon us. It's incumbent upon us to prove to them that it can work. I don't believe we're the only ones. In fact, I know we're not. There are lots of other companies out there. I mentioned them in my keynote, some of the other people that are out there and how they're approaching this problem.

It's really not a talk about InstantAction by the way. It's really a talk about the transition our industry is going to go through and the likely technologies that are going to get us there.