“There is less risk releasing a new game digitally. At retail, if you don’t have a 90 Metacritic score and millions of fans, it’s very risky to launch a new game." - Ubisoft’s digital publishing manager for EMEA Thomas Paincon

It's true that there's more originality coming from the digital side of things, but I think a lot of that has to do with the indie devs instead of the traditional publishers/developers.