In the video games industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media. While this field over time has become dominated by online distribution over broadband internet, this process has existed since the early 1980s.
One of the first examples of digital distribution in video games was GameLine, which operated during the early 1980s. The service allowed Atari 2600 owners to use a specialized cartridge to connect through a phone line to a central server and rent a video game for 5–10 days. The GameLine service was terminated during the video game crash of 1983.
In 1988, Nintendo introduced the Famicom Modem, a Japan-only peripheral for the Family Computer.