Business changes are "healthiest thing" for industry - Wright

The current changes taking place in the videogames industry are going to be the "healthiest thing" for the business in the long term, according to Sims and Spore creator Will Wright.

Speaking in the latest episode of Game Theory, Wright likens the changes happening in the games industry to the early evolution of animals in Earth's history - but with a twist.

"I think we're in the Cambrian explosion of games, where all these weird new life forms are popping out for the very first time and filling these niches that are appearing dramatically," he said.

"And of course a lot of the old, established things are going to be dying off pretty rapidly, even the major life forms. But more than anything else, I see this being the healthiest thing that could happen in the industry."

And with one of those changes being the shift to digital, Gaikai founder David Perry believes that one of the industry's key stakeholders - the retail sector - is actually accelerating the rate of change.

"Overall, the industry is on the same general path. We are still today in a world of retail. That's the way it will be for the short-term," he said. "Long-term, this industry is going digital, and it's going digital very quickly.

"To some extent, as the retailers come up with policies like used games, they're actually putting their foot on the gas pedal to oblivion. And that ultimately is going to make the game industry digital about as fast as it could possibly be," he added.

But, among the numerous industry executives pitching in on the subject, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter was careful to point out that while the industry is in a state of flux, core gamers aren't necessarily going anywhere.

"People don't understand that we're not really seeing a migration from packaged goods at the consumer level to social and mobile games," he said. "We're seeing an expansion. I don't think that the Halo player is suddenly playing FarmVille."

To find out what Wright, Perry and Pachter have to say in greater detail, as well as the thoughts of Trip Hawkins, Clint Hocking, Chris Taylor, Lorne Lanning and more, check out the full Game Theory Episode Two, available on GamesIndustry.biz now.