Lara Croft to be piped directly to players

Lara Croft, the tomb-raiding video game character that has sold 32 million titles over the past decade, is set to lead a new expedition into uncharted territory as her developers explore ways to pipe her adventures directly to consumers.

SCi Entertainment, the company that publishes the phenomenally successful Tomb Raider series, is preparing to offer the latest version of the game directly to Xbox 360 users by download and in a serialised format. It is the first time that Microsoft, the manufacturer of the console, has made a full retail game available to buy through its portal, and one of the first times that such a high-profile game will be serialised.

With more games being played live over broadband networks using the latest video game consoles, developers like SCi are keen to explore ways to sell directly to players. By cutting out the cost of selling the title through a retailer such as HMV or Game Group, as well as avoiding packaging and putting the game on a CD, development companies hope to increase margins substantially. By 2010, the market for digitally downloaded games is expected to be worth $289m (£146m), with the nascent "games-on-demand" market expected to top $104m.

Rob Murphy, finance director of SCi, said that selling directly to a consumer increases the return the company makes on a game by up to 20 per cent while also providing valuable information about the consumers buying the new Tomb Raider games. Mr Murphy said that the move represents a shift in the business model of games companies and that the company is preparing to sell other games in this way if the Tomb Raider test works.

Versions of Tomb Raider Anniversary have already been released for Sony consoles and PCs and have topped the video games charts over the past two weeks. The game recreates the original Tomb Raider that caught the public's imagination a decade ago, leading to numerous sequels and two feature films starring Angelina Jolie. The serialised version will be sold in two parts, with the first episodes available for the 6 million Xbox 360 users around the world to download in September. The serialised game will feature enhanced game-play and graphics compared to other versions that have already been released.

Mr Murphy said serialising games could open the market to more casual users who play games only intermittently. "Different people wants games in different ways and some people may want games to be more like TV shows," he said.