Nowadays we still go to the shop, buy the game and bring it home. Install it and start playing it. I put the CD in my drive and boot Championship 00/01, making myself ready for a long night of a true addiction that has caught me many years ago.

When I sit back and look at my tower I suddenly realise that this all could be different in a matter of years. Now we are still used to the CD and soon that will be replaced by the DVD. But what will it be in a couple of years?

Internet connections have become a lot quicker the past 3 years. Where we were sitting behind our computers waiting for our 28k8 to load up that page where a minimum of graphics was displayed on we now already eager to get that movie downloaded on our hard drive with our 512kb-cable connection.

Some people already have an average of 1.5MB at their homes, which equals a so-called T1 line. Seeing recent developments in (wireless) connection speeds I can only predict this trend to continue for the coming years.

So what does this have to do with me playing Championship Manager, you wonder? Ever thought about the possibility of downloading Championship Manager on your hard drive?

It's the year 2004 and you are watching the Champman program on TV. Suddenly you hear the long awaited official announcement. Championship Manager 6 is being released today and is available from 23:00 GMT.

You don't run out to the store anymore, no you head for your computer and turn it on. The 3.5Ghz starts booting Windows Uranium and your connection to the Internet is established.

Quickly you insert your electronic pay card and you buy the new Championship Manager from the Sports Interactive website. Right after the transaction is completed the download starts and within a matter of 2 minutes you have a whopping 4GB of data on your computer and you are ready to conquer the Egyptian championship.

Is this reality or fiction? Look around you and you will soon notice that we aren't far away from that anymore. Take virus scanners for example. Most of these products are hard to obtain from a store and if you want the latest version, you will have to purchase and download it from the Internet. It is closer then you think.

But lets take it one step further, which I personally think is much more likely to happen. You won't have to go out to the shop anymore, neither will you have to download the whole package.

No, you simply logon to your Championship Manager account and pay your monthly fee and you start to play Championship Manager online. It's that simple, others have already done it (without the payment).

You might ask yourself why is this more likely to happen and I have only one word for that which is "Piracy". This is probably the most effective way to make a fist against piracy and most big gaming companies will have considered it by now and probably making plans to introduce it.

By not giving people anything to download anymore they won't have anything to spread. And by giving people personal ID's their moves can be checked and that is when the gaming companies will soon enough find out if there is foul play involved.

Now this is probably very harsh, but more a reality though as big gaming companies will go to extremes to suppress piracy. So where do you see yourself playing Championship Manager in 5 years? Let's say that we will meet each other online.

If you have any comments on one of my columns feel free to contact me at mark@thedugout.net.