EA's Peter Moore: Digital revenue will overtake retail in two years

Dohc-WP

Dohc-WP

Ron Burgundy
A COO Peter Moore is betting on a dominating role for digital revenue in video games. Speaking at the Digital Entertainment World conference, Moore said (via GI.biz) he expects digital sales to fully eclipse retail numbers in two years.

He likened the rising prominence of downloads as a type of "creative destruction," in which an industry is unable to regulate the evolving purchasing habits of its consumers. Moore compared the scenario to the music industry, which he says is still recovering from its shift away from relying primarily on physical disc sales for revenue to a more download-centric model.

Moore relates that EA's "customers" used to be retailers but, in the global always-online environment of the modern era, those "customers" are now the players. This has caused EA to triple its customer service operations over the last five years and even affected the company's marketing efforts – TV advertising spend is down and online and social advertising is up. Social media is more important than ever to EA.

EA just reported third-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2014. While the massive games publisher suffered an overall net loss of $308 million during the period, digital sales accounted for over half of all earnings. EA attributed this big upswing to a 60 percent increase in transactions in EA's lineup of collectible card-based simulations, FIFA Ultimate Team, Madden NFL Ultimate Team and NHL Ultimate Team.

Source: GI.biz
 
With the way things are going, retail sales are just getting too expensive anyway, so they need to pass that cost saving onto the consumer and it'll get there. I'd much rather have a digital library than a physical one anyway, the amount of disks that dont work for me now is highly annoying.
 
Nice read, but I'm not happy.
I enjoy retail stores and interaction with other people. With digital sales only I feel like my only interaction will be through communities like MG which is only online and not quite the same, it's just gonna feel impersonal.
 
Cicero said:
With the way things are going, retail sales are just getting too expensive anyway, so they need to pass that cost saving onto the consumer and it'll get there. I'd much rather have a digital library than a physical one anyway, the amount of disks that dont work for me now is highly annoying.
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If the launch of next-gen consoles has shown us anything, there will be no Rands saved by buying digital games. Publishers are way too greedy to actually bring down their prices as a result of physical copies and reseller mark ups, they will charge exactly the same and pocket the extra cash. Only this time there won't be price drops over time and no Christmas sales except for half priced micro-transactions :rolleyes:
 
Ike_009 said:
Nice read, but I'm not happy.
I enjoy retail stores and interaction with other people. With digital sales only I feel like my only interaction will be through communities like MG which is only online and not quite the same, it's just gonna feel impersonal.
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But they're all useless? "whistling:
 
Duke Dude said:
If the launch of next-gen consoles has shown us anything, there will be no Rands saved by buying digital games. Publishers are way too greedy to actually bring down their prices as a result of physical copies and reseller mark ups, they will charge exactly the same and pocket the extra cash. Only this time there won't be price drops over time and no Christmas sales except for half priced micro-transactions :rolleyes:
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This pretty much. I don't think it's going to overtake in 2 years though. And what would happen to collector's editions featuring statues and collector's items? Would they fall away completely?
 
I much prefer having a digital library these days. They just need to make digital versions cheaper since most of the cost of a physical copy doesn't apply. I think they keep the prices in line with retail copies to protect the retailers, but it seems very unfair to the consumers.
 
The older I become, the more I enjoy doing everything digitally. I no longer crave the interactivity of shopping nor the need for Cases/boxes to take up space.
 
Stunt said:
The older I become, the more I enjoy doing everything digitally. I no longer crave the interactivity of shopping nor the need for Cases/boxes to take up space.
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I'm kinda in the same boat, not gone completely digital yet but will probably soon.
 
Stunt said:
The older I become, the more I enjoy doing everything digitally. I no longer crave the interactivity of shopping nor the need for Cases/boxes to take up space.
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Besides you get problems like my friend had the other day, I asked if he wanted to play some BF4, and he said his daughter had gotten hold of his disc and pushed it around on the floor so it was all scratched up. Or someone could break in to your house and steal all your games. If your library is digital, those sort of things can't happen.
 
matt said:
Besides you get problems like my friend had the other day, I asked if he wanted to play some BF4, and he said his daughter had gotten hold of his disc and pushed it around on the floor so it was all scratched up. Or someone could break in to your house and steal all your games. If your library is digital, those sort of things can't happen.
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I'm going to assume this was for PC.

He should still be able to re-download the entire game from Origin, no?
 
Gouko_Tenrou said:
I'm going to assume this was for PC.

He should still be able to re-download the entire game from Origin, no?
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No, it was for XBox. Fortunately for him he works in the industry and managed to get a replacement disc from a supplier.
 
Duke Dude said:
If the launch of next-gen consoles has shown us anything, there will be no Rands saved by buying digital games. Publishers are way too greedy to actually bring down their prices as a result of physical copies and reseller mark ups, they will charge exactly the same and pocket the extra cash. Only this time there won't be price drops over time and no Christmas sales except for half priced micro-transactions :rolleyes:
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That's what I meant though, it'll really take off if they pass the cost savings onto the consumer. I'm not sure if they're not doing this now because they dont want to kill off the retail sales they already have out there? But damn, R800 for a game it just insane.
 
Cicero said:
That's what I meant though, it'll really take off if they pass the cost savings onto the consumer. I'm not sure if they're not doing this now because they dont want to kill off the retail sales they already have out there? But damn, R800 for a game it just insane.
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not really

when bioshock 1 came out on xbox 360 payed R700 for it at look n listen and Forza 2 was also that price and that was waay back in 2007 when the rand was a schiite load stronger
 
I think it's really to protect the retailers, you'd be killing a ton of businesses if digital games where as cheap as they should be. Still a rip off for us though.

At least there are nice specials on digital games quite often.
 
I personally don't think that I would be too happy with the switch to full digital, and these are my reasons why.

-There are few things that beat the excitement of having a game that your pre-ordered arrive in your hands with all the shiny stuff that goes with the CE.

-When you walk into a store and see a really cheap deal on some game that you always wanted to try but never could afford.

-When you are unsure about a purchase and on the off-chance that someone around happens to know what the game is about and can give you real world unbiased input.

-The ability to buy/sell pre-owned games.

-And most importantly an excuse to just mill about any particular store for a while :p
 
Snare said:
I personally don't think that I would be too happy with the switch to full digital, and these are my reasons why.

-There are few things that beat the excitement of having a game that your pre-ordered arrive in your hands with all the shiny stuff that goes with the CE.

-When you walk into a store and see a really cheap deal on some game that you always wanted to try but never could afford.

-When you are unsure about a purchase and on the off-chance that someone around happens to know what the game is about and can give you real world unbiased input.

-The ability to buy/sell pre-owned games.

-And most importantly an excuse to just mill about any particular store for a while :p
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All of this. I love collector's editions so to see them go would be a shame. Perhaps they'll still be sold along with voucher codes to download the digital copies of the games :rolleyes:
 
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