EA making the switch from purely physical sales to digital downloads!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20060005-17.html?tag=mncol;posts

almost 50-50 split this year....they say.
"It's where we see our growth," Riccitiello said.

Wow, I didn't realize that digital was such a large portion of the market.

I can think of the benifits of this, however I lament the effect on some small game retailers. They make most of their cash on resale, but with no hard copies... Gamespot I could care less, they have put down almost all the small retailers in my town anyway. Oh well, such is business these days.

I knew physical copies would die eventually. Many stores around here have stopped selling PC games, and the ones that do have one shelf as opposed to the 3 for 360 and 2.5 for PS3. PC games also have little resale value anyway due to keys and such.

Digital allows games to be more profitable for the publishers/developers. Makes sense, I guess. It's pretty easy to state all kinds of flaws in digital distribution, and I'm going to miss those shiny discs, but we all knew this was coming.

I think it's pretty complicated since there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to each distribution method, so... I don't know how I feel about this to be honest.

This is going to make theft of accounts more popular in the future... Thankfully we can actually backup our stuff here.

Well said, and damn right!

I wonder what effect this will have on other regions. Retail PC games are still hugely successful here in New Zealand, with stores like Dick Smith giving the PC as much shelf space as a console if not more; at my local store PC games are located nearest to the door, non-game software after that, and console games dead last. PC games only get ignored at EB Games, and that's only because they are owned by GameStop and so share their doomed business model.

So far at least some publishers have cut retail copies only in regions where it makes sense but I doubt this will continue. Digital distribution is largely a non-option in New Zealand thanks to ridiculous broadband data caps (Crysis 2 is 10GB? My monthly data cap is 20GB).

Almost all entertainment is moving digital, not just games, and publishers as well as internet providers must be salivating at the very thought of it. Publishers because it vastly cuts down the cost of production and it also gives them almost total control over the product (I'm envisioning something very much in the vein of On-live from all major publishers in the not too distant future).

Internet providers because they're looking at User Based Billing (here in Canada) and must be creaming their drawers at the thought of the gobs and gobs of money it will mean as movies, games, videos, music, etc all move to streaming digital content.

Just a giant pile of bullshit. EA already wanted to become an "all digital company" thus far. They failed at that, and they will fail to switch to digital - ie, a new universe of means to fuck up users with DRMs and shit - in the upcoming years.

The reason? Common sense: I will always want REAL GOODS to weigh in my hands, and I'm not the only one in the world. On the contrary, we are legion....

I can see EA releasing something like Steam, but only for their games.

What a horrible day it will be when that happens.. EA running a digital service, I don't even want to think about it.

I can't tell whether you're joking or not. They already run a digital service. :P

EA's digital service blows.

You can only re-download for 90 days unless you pay extra to make it re-downloadble for upto 2 years.

They changed that a long time ago. I never paid for Battlefield 2142's status to be upgraded. It's been two years, and my download link has never been removed.

Isn't it the same with ebooks for the kindle in the US, more ebooks sold than paperbacks.

2011 will be the breakthrough for digital selling. Afterwards, box selling will be niche.

This means, the future will be digital and we will have DRM as hot topic for many years to come...

Dunno about e-books. I bought all the ones I wanted years ago. Wouldn't surprise me, really, though. And yes, there was DRM on most of them (which I managed to get the most odious ones removed :ninja: albeit most are still in .lit format - MSReader....blergh)