EA On Downloads: Physical Releases Will Be With Us A Long While Yet

Karloff

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Oct 19, 2009
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EA On Downloads: Physical Releases Will Be With Us A Long While Yet



People still buy CDs, don't they?

Though all the excitement's in the digital world, Electronic Arts still thinks physical releases will be part of the business for a long while yet. After all, it said in an investor question and answer session, people still buy music CDs, even though downloads have been the norm in the music business for some time. Besides, when people buy a game, they want to play it right away, and download times just get in the way of the fun.

OK, picture this: you've bought your next generation console, which can download full AAA games. But the problem is bandwidth; even though things are getting faster all the time, files are getting bigger all the time too, negating any advantage from swifter download speeds. People want to play as soon as they buy, says EA, and waiting's no fun. Besides, there's the used game issue to consider. "People think about the price of a game based on the fact that they can still return that game and they need a physical disk to do that," says EA's CFO Blake Jorgensen.

But there's great things coming, says Jorgensen. Profit margins will go up dramatically as soon as publishers can start doing without physical distribution costs. "And what's more exciting though is really the extension of life of the game," says he, where a game that retails for $40 or $50 has its life extended for months, even years, while the profit goes up and up with each digital DLC purchased.

You have to wonder about statements like this. Yes, people still buy CDs, but they also buy an always online future [http://www.vinyl.com/], right?

Source: Seeking Alpha [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1850511-electronic-arts-management-presents-at-ubs-global-technology-conference-transcript?page=7&p=qanda&l=last]


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Yopaz

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Jun 3, 2009
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Personally I buy CDs because most places to buy digital music gives me quite low bitrates and overall bad quality on the files and I prefer to rip the CD myself in order to get the quality I want for it.

Oh well, games now. I think digital distribution could work if we just fragmented the games a little. I'm not sure how it worked for The Last of Us, but I remember that it would allow you to start playing before it was fully downloaded and I've used such a service with some online movie rental services (games require a little more than just pictures so it's going to be diffeerent though) and I'd like to see this become more normal. I also love Steam's preloading feature despite that it has its flaws. However as long as physical games exist there can't be monopoly on distribution models so I don't want to see us going fully digital ever.

Prices won't change and they might even increase if we let them do that.
 

putowtin

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Jul 7, 2010
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Yopaz said:
Personally I buy CDs because most places to buy digital music gives me quite low bitrates and overall bad quality on the files and I prefer to rip the CD myself in order to get the quality I want for it..
I have to buy physical copies, the internet in my area is so bad it takes an hour to download a single song (Commander Shepard for those that are interested)

Once I finally get "superfast all singing - all dancing" internet I'd like to be able to download more, but by then everyone else will be using something different!
 

Metalrocks

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still buying copies from my store. even when my connection is good, it still takes time to download some big files. also, if you buy a CE, you already have more stuff a digital game dont have.
 

Yopaz

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Jun 3, 2009
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putowtin said:
Yopaz said:
Personally I buy CDs because most places to buy digital music gives me quite low bitrates and overall bad quality on the files and I prefer to rip the CD myself in order to get the quality I want for it..
I have to buy physical copies, the internet in my area is so bad it takes an hour to download a single song (Commander Shepard for those that are interested)

Once I finally get "superfast all singing - all dancing" internet I'd like to be able to download more, but by then everyone else will be using something different!
Yeah, this is most likely going to be a problem for years if not decades to come. The average internet speed is quite good, but there are plenty who's got below average and live in places where expanding isn't profitable.
 

Gone Rampant

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I prefer buying on disc due to pragmatism- my hard drive just can't support a lot of games, so I need to constantly delete games to get new ones. Thus, hard disc. It also allows me to borrow games from friends and let them borrow from me, so there's that.
 

Hawkeye21

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There are probably a lot of kids around nowadays who know perfectly well how to use a computer, iphone, mp3 player, digital cameras and have no freaking idea what CDs are. I have around 300 cds/dvds in my room, and I can't for the life of me remember the last time I've used them.
And now I feel old, because I vividly remember installing windows 3.1 from floppy disks on my brand new Pentium machine...
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Of course physical will be with us for a while. If shit internet doesn't prevent an all-digital future, download caps sure as hell will.
 

Slash2x

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Sorry all I read from that is Origin has been sucking so bad EA knows that all other digital platforms must be hurting too..... EA also said... "Steam what?... Go Fuck yourself"
 
Apr 5, 2008
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I want to disagree as a matter of principle, but can't because it's correct about physical sales.

But coming at it from the digital sales angle, I can. Why do they let their games sell on XBL and PSN, but not Steam? RRRAAAAAGGGGHHHH. I don't want Origin, I don't use Origin. Put ME3 and DS3 on Steam so I can bloody buy them. Phew, I was able to turn that around at least. Thought I'd have an entire post in which I can only say EA are right.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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Sp basically, after almost a decade of this crap, EA (and others) are steadily realising that internet is not nearly as solid an reliable a resource as say, breathable air and that people might want to use retail methods besides it? My God, I'm not ready for it all to end!


Hawkeye21 said:
And now I feel old, because I vividly remember installing windows 3.1 from floppy disks on my brand new Pentium machine...
Pff, you're not old, I used to have to use boot disks on my AMSTRAD every single time I powered it up, you kids and your hard disk installed operating systems!
 

chozo_hybrid

What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.
Jul 15, 2009
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Valderis said:
"Profit margins will go up dramatically as soon as publishers can start doing without physical distribution costs."

So you're gonna fuck us even harder then?
Sounds like it. You'd think they would make it so the profit margin was a bit higher then this, but lower the overall price and still make a butt load of cash.
 

LegendaryVKickr

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Jul 20, 2012
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I remember when EA was claiming they were going to be the future of digital gaming, leading the march to online only, despite bandwith issues and file sizes, downloading speeds, and used game sales.

What happened Electronic Arts? Did your CEO screw up...oh? He got sacked...? Oh that's right! He DID get sacked.

Sorry I can't help but gloating when I call things before the head of the industry does. It's like these big companies are run by businessmen, and not gamers. But to be fair, that's probably true.


Me personally, I think there is potential for digital games to be the way of the future, but it's not quite there yet. My PS3 can take hours to download and install a game, and I can't play anything else while the download is taking place, rendering me bored. Until the process is streamlined on consoles, it's not the best or only way to go.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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Aug 30, 2011
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Did I just happen to miss the part where they say a digital system would allow them to lower the price of games?

Oh, wait, that wasn't in there.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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Karloff said:
Besides, when people buy a game, they want to play it right away, and download times just get in the way of the fun.
I am confused. I want to play the game as fast as possible, so i have tow choices:
1. drive to the store, wait in line, buy game, drive home, install game - 2 hours + time spent.
2. Buy the game online, download it, install it - 30-60 minutes time spent. Not to mention half of that i probably already can play the game thanks to play while installing stuff they are doing now.

Valderis said:
"Profit margins will go up dramatically as soon as publishers can start doing without physical distribution costs."

So you're gonna fuck us even harder then?
cutting out retailer middleman will increase thier profits with same prices. nothing spectacular here.

Hawkeye21 said:
There are probably a lot of kids around nowadays who know perfectly well how to use a computer, iphone, mp3 player, digital cameras and have no freaking idea what CDs are. I have around 300 cds/dvds in my room, and I can't for the life of me remember the last time I've used them.
And now I feel old, because I vividly remember installing windows 3.1 from floppy disks on my brand new Pentium machine...
when i moved last year i counted. 660 CDs/dvds. I do use some of them, but most do stand unused. In fact its easier to just download the movie than to go and find it in my stack of DVDs.
That being said, yesterday i was "Sent" to courses on computer usage (though i knew more than the lector sadly, so time wasted, but tell that to my boss). The computers there had functioning floppy drives and windows 8 in them. thats an odd combination.
But yeah i do still have a functioning machine that has floppes, and infact i even use them. well, one floppy once in 6 months but i do!


Irridium said:
Of course physical will be with us for a while. If shit internet doesn't prevent an all-digital future, download caps sure as hell will.
If your internet has download caps it already falls under shit internet category.

Thoralata said:
Music is largely digital while games have stayed largely physical for one main reason.

A music album is around 100-200 Megabytes in size. A video game is anywhere from 6-50 Gigabytes in size. Not everyone has unlimited downloads, and to go purely digital (like a certain other hack is doing) is a monumentously stupid business decision.
a small correction: a music album of 60 minutes (roughly the lenght of most standart albums) takes at least 500-600 mb if you want something that is close to CD quality.
VIdeogames, so far whats the largest we had, 26 GB COD?