EA: Digital Will Rule, But We'll Never Abandon Physical Media
See Full ImageIt seems inevitable at this point.
Electronic Arts says that eventually, the majority of their revenue will come from digital products rather than traditional boxed products. This is what company COO Peter Moore told Reuters in a recent interview. And as expected, he says the switch is "not far away."
"There will come a point, whether it is two or three years from now, when we say, 'We are doing more in digital media now than we are in physical media,' and it's clearly … not far away."
Moore cited EA's record $1.2 billion they earned in the digital sector over the previous fiscal year and obviously, that number is expected to rise in the future. The publisher has 41 social mobile and free-to-play games in the hopper, with even more looking to be developed for the near future. However, this doesn't mean EA will cut out boxed products altogether. Added Moore:
"We will never abandon physical media. As long as the consumer wants to buy something on a disc, we will be there to offer it."
Well now, wait a minute...doesn't that statement sort of imply that if too few consumers care about physical media, EA won't offer it? No company as big as EA will continue to produce something only a tiny handful of consumers want, right? That just doesn't seem logical.
Tags: ea, electronic arts, gaming, digital games, physical media, gaming industry
8/13/2012 10:10:04 AM Ben Dutka
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Comments (20 posts)
Ultimadesires
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 10:48:53 AM
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I feel a bit cheated with the PSP-Vita upgrade people who bought PSP games digital can play them on the Vita. While If you bought the physical UMD's your stuffed.
1 up, 1 down
Neo_Aeon666
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 9:44:01 PM
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xenris
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 11:10:07 AM
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If they are going to give us this stuff directly games should go from 59.99 to 39.99 or 44.99.
This would show that they care about the customer and the gamers plus they would be getting what, 100% more than they get if they sell through gamestop or something? I don't know the actually numbers but I know they get around 20% of the price they sell it for or something, maybe 30%.
3 up, 0 down
frylock25
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 1:48:41 PM
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Temjin001
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 2:12:51 PM
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dmiitrie
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 2:45:47 PM
You can talk about how much money the devs and pubs save with digital all you want. And to be fair, those points are not invalid. But all of that stuff is less important to me than the question, "how much an I willing to pay to play this game." And once I answer that question, then thats the price I'm willing to pay regardless of format.
1 up, 2 down
xenris
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 4:10:35 PM
I just think gaming is getting really expensive, especially with the unethical DLC practices a couple companies decided to roll with.
But I agree in that if something feels worth 60$ I will pay the 60$. An example of this would be Virtua Fighter 5 FS, a 15 dollar fighter that has so much value I purchased the complete version with all the costume pieces for 30 dollars but honestly I would have paid 60 bucks for this game and not felt bad at all :)
Last edited by xenris on 8/13/2012 4:13:34 PM
1 up, 0 down
Neo_Aeon666
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 9:48:45 PM
Sure if you forget about the past all is fine but... That is just letting them off the hook for removing so much too easily and still charge the same price. No?
Last edited by Neo_Aeon666 on 8/13/2012 9:49:28 PM
2 up, 1 down
dmiitrie
Tuesday, August 14, 2012 @ 2:10:18 AM
So I don't mind letting devs off the hook for that because the only things I'm losing are things I don't want.
@ xenris - I agree with you; there are very few games that I'll pay $60 for. And there are times when a digital game will be priced at a point that I'm unwilling to pay and if Ive found a physical (new) copy for significantly less, and I'll get the physical despite not caring for that format. But once again, unless you really enjoy all the extra stuff (and are therefore not predisposed to buy digital anyway), then the two formats are practically identical.
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Lemon_Saint
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 11:15:30 AM
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With the recent California ruling that digital goods should be treated as any other tradable good, (get it, buy and sell digital games), it will be interesting to see what comes of all of this in the coming years.
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WorldEndsWithMe
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 12:36:46 PM
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Sony needs a better way to show our previous downloads on PSN. People are going to be deleting games to make space and then redownloading them later to play them again.
Next gen this will open up a profit margin for hardware devs selling easily swappable hard drives. That could anger some, but we do want our companies to thrive don't we?
3 up, 0 down
frylock25
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 2:53:16 PM
1 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 3:01:12 PM
3 up, 1 down
Neo_Aeon666
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 9:56:18 PM
I have like 400 downloads LOL man I HATE it when I want to look for something or just simply look at what I had previously downloaded.
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berserk
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 7:20:27 PM
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Fixed at least unless they do like xenris said and lower game price by 10 or more .
1 up, 1 down
___________
Tuesday, August 14, 2012 @ 4:20:49 AM
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so digital being the only medium for them!
but for more traditional based companies its a different story.
eventually yea, eventually everything will be digital.
but certainly not "soon"!
i personally HATE digital for 4 different reasons.
1 if the internet, or servers, or whatever goes haywire you cant play!
2 you have nothing to trade in, or sell, or lend or borrow from or to friends.
3 if you switch systems you have to re download the game.
and last but not least by far the biggest problem!
download speeds, download usage, storage and cost.
i downloaded GTAIV a few days ago to run through the icenhancer and a few other mods.
the game took freaking 20 hours to download!
i could drive interstate AND BACK in that time!
when you can offer me to download my games in the time it takes me to go to the shop and buy it than will talk!
not to mention wasting your monthly quota you could be using on other things.
not to mention the costs of storage devices and the games themselves.
go to retail and buy a game for 80 or so bucks, or download said game for 80 or so bucks, waste 10 times more time, waste 20GBs of your download usage, and then find out oops my HDD is too small i have to go spend another 100+ bucks on a larger HDD!
no thanks!
when you can totally eliminate those issues and promise they will never ever pop up, and games are significantly cheaper to download than will talk!
till then sayonara!
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Rogueagent01
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 @ 5:57:50 AM
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And even then I still want my physical media, so only certain games will interest me when it comes to digital.
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VODKA_wizard
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Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 10:43:28 AM
Not now broadband companies need to get their act Together.
And start delivering faster speeds.
Before anything can happen???
Last edited by VODKA_wizard on 8/13/2012 10:44:52 AM