Dive Brief:

• In 2011, Square Enix, maker of "Tomb Raider" and other games, backed down and sent boxed copies of a video game that had originally contained a coupon for a free digital copy — even though GameStop had tampered with the boxes in order to remove the coupons before selling them.

• Release dates of games in brick-and-mortar stores are often well before their online release.

• Competition between online outlets and retailers like GameStop, which also do a small but tidy business in trade-and-resell, is heating up.

Dive Insight:

Looks like GameStop and other brick-and-mortar retailers are not about to let their customers drift off to online marketplaces for digital versions of their favorite pastime. No doubt, they've taken note of the way iTunes has captured customers with music and other digital wares, wresting them away from the old record store. So far, game developers are doing pretty well keeping the wrath of brick-and-mortar stores at bay, but it's taking some aggressive moves. Right now there's a sort of detente​, with game developers allowing store-based retailers to keep the advantage by scheduling hard copy releases ahead of digital versions, as well as other measures. Still, it’s hard to imagine being able to forever contain the beast that is the easy-peasy digital download. Maybe GameStop will advance to the next level and show how it’s done.