EA plans to go fully ‘digital’ in the future – Video Games Update
As Electronic Arts’ digital distribution client ‘Origin’ gains popularity, EA is planning to slowly phase out Retail distribution.
From the way things are going, it would seem that retail outlets are in trouble as Digital Distribution is getting more popular amongst gamers. Why bother going to Gamestop and deal with the annoying salesperson working there when you can just purchase the
game online and download it right away.
This trend, started by Valves’ Steam, is quickly spreading across the industry as most of the publishers and game retailing sites have started offering their products through digital distribution. Some of the popular ones, apart from Origin and Steam, include
Good Old Games (gog), Amazon Games Digital Downloads and G2Play.
"Retail is a great channel for us. We have great relationships with our partners there. At the same time, the ultimate relationship is the connection that we have with the gamer. If the gamer wants to get the game through a digital download and that's the
best way for them to get it, that's what we're going to do," said Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels.
The advantage of Digital over Retail for publishers is that they can cut out the middleman and thus cut a lot of the costs. There is the added benefit of gamers not being able to resell or trade the game that they downloaded. Second hand game sales have
been a thorn in the publishers eyes for quite some time, hence the creation of online passes in games with multiplayer so the publisher can get a percentage out of the resale.
EA claims that digital distribution won’t replace retail right away, but it is the inevitable future.
Though 100 percent Digital distribution is a publisher’s dream, the lack of retail will hurt the games industry in the long run and game retail stores across the globe will end up only selling hardware. There will be a repeat of what happened to the Music
industry after the advent of Apple’s iTunes Store and increase in music torrents. It will be interesting to see what method developers will adopt as the industry is constantly changing and expanding.
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