EA expecting to become 100% digital company
Ryan Martin / 12 years ago
With more and more of the games we buy and play becoming available through direct download, EA has stated that it is inevitable it will become an entirely digital company. EA currently makes a staggering $2 billion a year from digital based content sales and it says it can imagine a future where all EAs business is conducted through digitally downloaded sales.
EA labels boss Frank Gibeau stated the benefits to EA in going entirely digital:
“It has a lot of enhancements for our business, It allows us to keep more that we make. It allows us to do some really interesting things from a service level standpoint; we can be a lot more personalised with what we’re doing.”
Although EA stated that it will continue to deliver physical media to those gamers who demand it, they have commented that demand for physical media is dropping off. They also seemed pretty certain that the fully digital era would come, it is just a matter of when:
“For us, the fastest growing segment of our business is clearly digital and clearly digital services and ultimately Electronic Arts, at some point in the future – we’re going to be a 100 per cent digital company, period. It’s going to be there some day. It’s inevitable.”
Clearly the introduction of EA’s Origin service has been the flagship of this digital advancement, allowing EA to offer unlimited copies of game titles for high speed digital download. EA did not comment on the future of the Origin service but they did say they are now ready for the era of Internet connected TVs and content streaming.
Interesting thougts from EA, but do you think the demand for physical copies of video games will ever die? Let us know your thoughts below