In a bizarre role reversal, Valve Corp has announced that it will start selling Steam products through physical retail locations like GameStop and EB Games. Select stores will soon have “Steam Sections” that will sell products like Steam Machines, Steam Controllers, and Steam Link.

Since current Steam users are already familiar with the service’s digital distribution model, the move to retail seems to be designed to capture gamers outside of Steam’s usual audience.

“GameStop, GAME UK, and EB Games are leading retail destinations for core gamers and early adopters,” Valve founder and gaming holy figure Gabe Newell said. “Creating a ‘store within a store’ across North America and the UK is a significant win for getting the first generation of Steam Hardware products into gamers’ hands.”

What makes this move somewhat surprising is the fact that Steam Machines, which are PC game consoles that run on a custom-made Linux OS, are basically designed to make physical game sales obsolete. Rather than using discs, Steam Machines download games directly to the console’s hard drive with not retail middle man required. While traditional consoles like Xbox One and PlayStation 4 both have this capability, they also still support physical discs.

The digital game market has grown significantly over the last few years, but the bulk of game sales still come from physical copies, and last week GameStop CEO Paul Raines said in an interview that “disc-based games will be around forever.”

He added, “The market has seen physical music sales down 50 percent from its peak and physical movie sales down 60 percent from its peak, but even in a doomsday scenario, disc-based games will be around for a long time. I see a complimentary business where we sell discs plus download like the current console mode.”

It is unclear where download-only devices like Steam Machines fit into Raines’ prediction, especially since they could completely eliminate the used game market that stores like GameStop are known for.

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