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Electronic Arts is aware that the future of gaming lies in digital content and wants to eventually move away from physical discs. In fact, EA CEO John Riccitiello is planning to completely convert the gaming giant.
"Over the coming years, we will transform EA from a packaged goods company, to a fully integrated Digital entertainment company," Riccitiello said in an earnings call yesterday, according to a transcript posted on investment news site Seeking Alpha. "We're transforming EA to a games as a service model by focusing on three new strategies." He then outlined what those are:
#1, intellectual property. We believe we are driving the strongest portfolio of IP in the industry with EA Sports, FIFA, Hasbro, Madden, Pogo, Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Tetris, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and more. We fully intend to make these properties into year-round businesses that lead their sectors across a range of platforms.
#2, platform. Increasingly, we see ourselves as a software platform every bit as much as we see ourselves as a content maker for other companies platforms. We had a great start with 112 million consumers in our nucleus registration system, up from 61 million a year ago. And while we will continue to be a great partner to our best retail customers and our first-party partners, you will see the beginnings of a consumer game platform emerge at EA that complements and extends the console ecosystem and addresses the wider opportunity on other devices.
#3, talent. To deliver on the 2 strategies above, IP and platform, we will expand on a model that is already working at EA, and only at EA. We are the only company with world-class teams working across platforms on social, mobile, and console development. We are integrating these teams and augmenting them with product monetization and marketing. It's a big change. As an investor, you can see this as a way to better manage our IP and drive up the ARPU for our core properties. As a developer, you can see this as the reason EA will be the most interesting and satisfying place to work in the game industry.
The shift, when it occurs, will be a massive one. EA is one of the largest video game publishers in the world. Its revenue relies heavily upon packaged goods selling at various retail outlets.
In recent years, EA has already increased its digital distribution efforts, offering everything from downloadable extras to complete games. We would argue that EA began to acknowledge the importance of distributing games digitally back in December 2008, when the company officially joined Steam. EA's digital revenue grew by 46 percent year over year to more than $800 million in its last fiscal year. For this fiscal year, the company is expecting that figure to exceed $1 billion.
Just two months ago, the company dropped paper game manuals. The decision will extend to all EA titles worldwide and games will ship with on-disc manuals that are easily accessible from the main menu and pause screen. Gamers can also download digital pamphlets in multiple languages through a dedicated section on EA's support site, though only for certain titles.
The company is still distributing discs, but the transformation won't happen overnight. Joining Steam and killing off game manuals are just stepping stones to help gamers adjust to getting less or no physical content when buying a game.
User Comments: 38
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What the hell is wrong with you lot... cant any one you see the big picture. After spending £35 for a game, most of which theses days only last a few hours(portal 2), you cant sell on. Would you pay £15-20 for a blue ray movie that your stuck with.. This is just a stepping stone to EA charging what they like.
If publishers continue to go the digital route, they cant possibly still think of getting away with charging full retail as they currently are. Its like they want their cake and eat it, so on that line of reasoning if they want to go digital they will have lower the price of the game to something akin to rental. I don't mind begrudgingly paying £10 for a digital copy that I can keep/delete as I see fit, but £35.... - they can fcuc right off.
Fyi, what happened to the fact that without customers EA and other sycophant publishers would not exist, we should be telling them what we the gamers want not the other way around. And to all those stupid enough to think they way the games industry is going, I say baaaaaa, wake up and smell the coffee little sheep.
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I am collector. I want physical boxes and discs. If you decide to go all-digital that's your choice, EA... but i won't be buying any of your games from that moment on.
i like to spend my money on physical things, sorry but that's how i like my stuff.
i have never spent a single dime on a digital-only good, and i don't plan to do it now or in the foreseeable future. i prefer to be able to touch the things i own.
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I have both disks and digital (only because of the digital only sale that IMO was unfair to Mac users), but lets say I can't pay my internet bill for whatever reason.. lets say my computer bombs out during that time. Then I get no access to a game I paid for? Am I going to be reimbursed for every day I can not access my game?
What about Mac users? EADM is not made for Mac, How will these users access their games?
Will digital be cheaper then box purchases since it will not longer require the plastics, papers, and shipping costs?
Honestly this is a bad plan, and EA will lose many customers who have little to know internet access who enjoy these games.
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mailpup said:
...lets say my computer bombs out during that time.I'm not sure I understand this point. If your computer bombs out, you can't play your game anyway, correct? -
So they're going to skyrocket their piracy rate and lose a bunch of customers because not everyone has a credit card. Good job EA, you just lost many loyal disk-loving customers! ******...
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well i wont be switching over if i cant have a hard copy of game i dont want it plus digital games have securom which totally messed up my last pc.
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What about Mac users? Is EA games going to make their products still available for those users? What about people without the internet at home? Seriously do you expect a wifi hot spot to be able to stand someone downloading a file as large as Sims 3?
What about the glitches? For a Sims 3 user a huge chunk of problems come from their digital files. Many people have yet to get their copy of Barnacle Bay they paid for to download and install in-game.
Personally, I'd rather have a hard copy. If I had an iso file I downloaded the first thing I'd do is burn a hard copy of the game!
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I'm not crazy about this for several reasons and most of you have already touched on them. Having said that... EA, will you be offering us a discount for all this? After all, giving up all that packaging.. our games should now cost no more than $30 per... what do you think?
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I guess in the CEO's statement where he said the change over would be swift is TRUE.... I just lost all my sims 3 games and content with the latest update and had to reinstall everything only after manually deleting the games and registry. Because get this; my base game sims 3 was a store bought disc and my expansions were digital downloads and after the update my games no longer worked. The EA support tech told me that people can no longer have both physical disc and digitals...Thanks for NO proper warning EA..... YOU just LOST another customer....
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I guess in the CEO's statement where he said the change over would be swift is TRU.Thanks for NO proper warning EA..... YOU just LOST another customer....You say that, but do you mean it?
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What about Mac users? Is EA games going to make their products still available for those users? What about people without the internet at home? Seriously do you expect a wifi hot spot to be able to stand someone downloading a file as large as Sims 3?
Going disk-less fits in well with Apple, you'll just purchase through the App Store.
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this is the worst idea ever!
here in our country, i can buy new game discs at $30 each.
while at steam they sell like $60 and in digital copy, the heck, i still have to waste electricity to download the file. T_T
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The only Reasons I EVER buy digital.
1. want to play it on day 1 and am un-able to pick it up @ at store because I work night shift.
2. It's cheaper than the hard copy + it doesn't make me have the disc in the drive.
it takes me about a 8+ hours to download a game. Unless EA is going to do anything about the caps on speed and download limits on ISP (att and comcast are my only options at this point sady...) this is a BAD move.
also, as it has been said before how are people going to get it if they DON'T have a form of online curancy. Im pretty sure "little Timmy" isnt going to have access to a credit card to buy that new game when his parents are un-able to get a credit card.
I don't know about you, but thouse "pay by check" options aren't really time effective in most cases.
Last time I did pay by check it was for a online game back in the 90's for $10-$15 for a lifetime membership on AQ when I was little....
And yes, I have the orgin client. some of us were blind sided when we bought battlefield 3 from the EA store. (like me) and now we are forced to use orgin to get it. Orgin was fine until recently. Not sure if its my hard drive or the program, but everytime I try to load it, it freezes for a few minutes. and it doesn't "like" mutiple installs... I have BC2 on Steam and BC2 on Origin and it "somehow" removed it. there are bugs to work out. but the fact that people who dont have access to online currancy are being shoved aside is a dumb move..
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