EA Games President Frank Gibeau said recently in an interview that EA plan to go completely digital eventually, although it will of course be a transition.
Gibeau said:
“It’s in the near future. It’s coming,” he said. “We have a clear line of sight on it and we’re excited about it. 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. 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 personalized with what we’re doing.”
He did make it clear that it is something that will of course take time. And that if customers continue to want retail games then EA will continue to support their demand.
Gibeau continued:
“But if customers want to buy a game at retail, they can do that too. We’ll continue to deliver games in whatever media formats make sense and as one ebbs and one starts to flow, we’ll go in that direction,” Gibeau said. “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 percent digital company, period. It’s going to be there some day. It’s inevitable.”
In May, EA announced that they were receiving a impressive amount of success in the digital market, having brought in $1.2 million for the year through digital distribution alone, and expect it continue to grow over the next coming year.
Gibeau stated:
“In the coming year, we break away from the pack, with a very different profile than the traditional game companies and capabilities that none of our new digital competitors can match,” EA CEO John Riccitiello said at the time.
