Latest evidence that it's real:
http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/Stardock2014.pdf
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2cfcwx/stardock_customer_report_2014_pdf_retail_is_dead/
http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/Stardock2014.pdf
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2cfcwx/stardock_customer_report_2014_pdf_retail_is_dead/
The most important quotes
Retail is dead
Only five years ago, our survey showed that 58% of our customers bought their software in a box, at retail. Further, 24% of them expected to be still doing so five years from then. In reality, it turned out to be 6%. Retail disappeared even faster than our tech-savvy customer base imagined it would.
On mobile
Mobile development is [generally] not viable as a business model...yet
We’ve spent the past 2 years interviewing countless developers (big and small) and concluded that making games or software for mobile (iOS or Android) is not a viable business model yet.
[*]Discoverability is terrible. It is difficult for quality products to float to the top. They’re flooded with drek and the user experience for exploring what is available is terrible. This is not something easily addressed.
[*]Price sensitivity is too severe. Prices are traditionally determined by supply and demand. There are not remotely enough active consumers to justify $2 on any mobile platform.
[*]Attachment rates are terrible. This is the nature of a mobile device. We do not expect to spend a lot of time actively interacting with our mobile device as compared to other devices (TVs with consoles or computers). As a result, users do not tend to become very attached to any particular item (with notable exceptions, which is why they’re notable).
[/list]Once a game or piece of software leaves the very very top of the sellers, the income fall-off is severe. Our poorest-selling DLC for PC games generates more income than nearly every iOS or Android developer app we’ve gotten numbers for. Let me emphasize this, we’ve talked privately to a considerable number of developers who have made “successful” iPhone/Android games, games you’ve probably heard of, and their numbers are depressing.