The pace of disruption in the transition from physical to digital gaming (part two)

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We’ve seen several rounds of disruption come and go in the video game business. Not every great idea has taken hold and changed the industry as we know it. OnLive, the promising cloud-gaming startup that raised $200 million and then cratered, was a prime example of a company that tried to disrupt the traditional game retail business and rushed too fast. Startups and traditional game companies have to not only understand disruption, but also how fast to execute it. That was the topic of discussion at the keynote panel I recently moderated at the Login conference in San Francisco. We had five leaders of the modern gaming business talk about the pace of change in gaming, and the perspectives they offered were enlightening. Here’s part two of our edited story on the pace of change from physical to digital gaming. For part one, check out this link.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.