The portion of the playerbase that actually sets foot in a brick-and-mortar store to buy a physical copy of a game has plummeted. Anyone buying a new PC game will grab it on Steam, Origin, uPlay, or direct from the publisher for most MMOs. The "Gaming" department at my store used to contain nearly a hundred linear feet (think six "aisles") of games, console accessories, and PC gaming peripherals. Starting about four years ago, corporate merged it with the Hobbies department which encompasses most of the "Maker scene" (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, other microcontrollers, robotics, DIY components), and now four of those six aisles have random parts and kits and shit, one is nothing but drone parts and cheap/toy drones, and there's one sad little aisle of mostly last year's games. We keep about twenty consoles and one half-full four-foot section of current titles in back, sandwiched between a pile of Mac-formatted external drives and several stacks of high-end security kits. The gaming industry abandoned physical retail years ago, it's just that businesses who overspecialized into gaming either don't know it yet or don't have a plan beyond this.
