Many game publishers and studios are still getting used to the way digital distribution has disrupted the industry, with a large percentage of game sales being made through platforms like Steam, PlayStation Network and Xbox live. According to Square Enix Europe boss Phil Rogers, digital has not only changed the way consumers can access games, but it has also changed the way a game sells over its lifetime.

Between two to three years ago, Square Enix released several high-profile, games: Sleeping Dogs, a Grand Theft Auto-like crime game set in Hong Kong; Tomb Raider, the 2013 reboot of the Lara Croft franchise; and Hitman: Absolution, the fifth game in the popular bald assassin Hitman series. The games all sold moderately well, selling several million copies each, but Square Enix initially considered the games failures.

“We had big hope [for their success]. We work with big ambitions,” Rogers recently told Gamesindustry.biz. “But if we look back at the market it was in an interesting place. The market today is more confident. The new generation of machines have installed well, and I think consumers have more confidence.

“All of those games were successful in the end. What we learned – and it seems obvious when you look back – is that digital has grown for every business, It’s something that people underestimated until they could see the results, and see what digital actually offers.”

Rogers explained that digital sales have greatly extended the length of a game’s sales cycle, slightly reducing the sharp drop normally seen as time passes after release/

“It used to be that there was a big spike and it tailed off pretty quickly,” he said. “Now there’s continued engagement, and with word of mouth we saw a great tail evolve.”

While Hitman: Absolution has a somewhat mixed reputation, both Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs grew their audiences over time, so while their initial sales were not quite as high as Square Enix had (somewhat unrealistically) project, they went on to have a healthy long-term life cycle thanks to digital sales.

Tomb Raider has since gotten a sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is scheduled to release in November, and Sleeping Dogs will be getting a spinoff online game called Triad Wars later this year. The Hitman franchise is also coming back in December with a game that is simply titled Hitman.

Image courtesy of Square Enix Holdings Co Ltd