I have been wondering about just how long Rift is going to last. I have visited several large chain stores in Wa state and found that they no longer stock RIFT at all... I know, is it really a large indicator? Well, they still carry WOW, EQ2, Conan, StarTrek, heck i even found a couple copies of UO... and 2 of them stated they stopped stocking it after the initial release. they just didnt go very fast. Is it because of the electronic download age or what? are there just THAT many chinese players supporting the game? The reason i ask... is it viable to keep working on a bot for a game that may not live long? And yes, i have a year subscription for the bot. I for one, have found myself not even thinking about playing anymore. Once i hit 50 and found that they sorta misrepresented World PVP, and waiting hours for a dungeon que, that talking to my wife gave me more pleasure. Just wondering.
You have to take into effect that most chain stores carry those because that is the medium that was originally used to distribute them to the customers. Now games are going 90%+ digital download only. This saves a ton of money on packaging. While it probably only costs them 2$ per box+dvd+paper inside. They now just saved 500k copies * $2 = 1mil in expenses that are now going to the profit margin.
