The previously digital-only Green Man Gaming has spawned a physical arm, a grotesque flexing bicep that’s offering you boxed copies of PC and console games. You know, like the kind they sell in shops. Real shops! The ones you can touch and caress. To mark the advent of boxes Green Man Gaming are selling pre-orders of physical PC versions of Darksiders 2 and Sleeping Dogs for just £19.99. They’ve got a whole week of such deals lined up, starting from July 27 and including the likes of Black Ops 2, Borderlands 2, Hitman Absolution and Guild Wars 2. Fantastic news for shelf owners.
Green Man Gaming merged with Playfire earlier this month. The retailer also has plans afoot to roll out boxed product sales beyond the UK. “Green Man Gaming’s rapid growth has been driven by our commitment to deliver a simple, seamless experience to core gamers – offering choice in the way they want those games,” says Paul Sulyok, the company’s MD. “As a UK company it was a natural choice to deliver the UK first, but we are by no means finished there.”
“With more than £1.4bn spent annually in the UK alone on boxed games product, we believe there’s room for an agile, ambitious E-commerce retailer like GMG to provide this service in the UK and beyond.”
Hark at them. Are boxed products a bigger deal for console owners, perhaps? I like my games like I like the ghost of my dead dog: cloud-based, invisible, and if you forced me to point out where I thought their physical remnants are, I’d have to say “in this dusty metal box here by my feet, I think”. Still, let’s keep an eye on that sale – physical or otherwise, £19.99 pre-orders aren’t to be sniffed at.