Store retail has "abused" games industry - Castle

InstantAction CEO Louis Castle has launced a stinging broadside on the bricks-and-mortar retail sector, branding it as a "parasite" that's "abused the industry horribly" by pursuing the second hand game sales and rental route.

And Castle - who co-founded EA's former Westwood studio and whose current project is aimed at revolutionising the discovery and sharability of videogames online - believes that physical retailers have threatened the very existence of the games business by such activity.

When asked if InstantAction would be the thing that killed bricks-and-mortar, he replied: "I hope so. I have no love at all for the Wal-Marts and GameStops of the world - they've abused the industry horribly with selling used games, and rentals.

"There's no love lost there at all. They're all desperately trying to figure out where to go next too, but at the end of the day they've killed the distribution method.

"They've put our entire industry in jeopardy by taking all of the money out of the system - between them and the pirates it's really a tough way to go."

He stopped short of predicting a timeline for the demise of physical retail, however.

"Oh, I'm not going to put the pennies on the eyes of traditional retail - those guys are going to be around for a long time, and it's going to take a while," he said.

"We're not going to be the only technology out there, but every one of them will be another brick in the wall, another step in the right direction to saving our industry from partners that became parasites. They're really no longer partners - they're killing the goose that lays the golden egg."

Read the full interview with Castle now, in which he also talks more in-depth about the thinking behind InstantAction.