Marketing Research Firm Challenges EA's "All Digital Future"

[Sesambrot]

there is a reason for that.

The retail market still sits on a major part of their customers. The retailers more or less said "if you dont sell the game at the same price on digital as on physical for X amount of time we wont sell your game". So rather than competing they made an untimatum because they still owned that large market share. EA or Valve for that matter cannot afford losing the retail sector.

Maybe I'm confusing something, but usually the stuff on steam costs just as much as a retail-copy, sometimes even less, and that isn't even accounting for their "midweek madness"...

 

[Alternative]

EA made an announcement?

EVERYBODY QUICK LETS IMMEDIATELY CLAIM THAT EA IS WRONG!

sure EA doesnt have the best track record with the rest of the gaming culture.
But that doesnt mean they cant be even slightly right sometimes

but for my 2 cents. EA is indeed partially wrong
the much sort after FPS market is 90% douche bro-dudes and annoying little kids who wont buy it digitally and for that reason alone physical media with prevail for quite a few years to come.

 

[Sesambrot]

there is a reason for that.

The retail market still sits on a major part of their customers. The retailers more or less said "if you dont sell the game at the same price on digital as on physical for X amount of time we wont sell your game". So rather than competing they made an untimatum because they still owned that large market share. EA or Valve for that matter cannot afford losing the retail sector.

Maybe I'm confusing something, but usually the stuff on steam costs just as much as a retail-copy, sometimes even less, and that isn't even accounting for their "midweek madness"...

yeah that is the point. the retailers forces the prices of the digital version up in order to be competitive. It doesn't take a math doctorate to figure out that a game that doesn't need physical production will cost less to produce and distribute.

Uhm, I was actually pointing out that steam-prices are NOT more expensive than retail.
I fail to see the "retailer-conspiracy" with that... Sure, you could argue that they might "prevernt" them from lowering the price below retail, but that doesn't really explain the extremely high prices on Origin when compared to retailprices of the same game.

It only leaves me with two possible conclusions:
EA is just a big, faceless, moneyhungry company, or they are even more stupid than I had thought agreeing to a deal where they could be forced to keep the "launch-price" of a game while the retailvalue drops by about 50%.

Actually, make that three possible conclusions, it seems likely that both scenarios are true.

 

[cerebus23]

there is a reason for that.

The retail market still sits on a major part of their customers. The retailers more or less said "if you dont sell the game at the same price on digital as on physical for X amount of time we wont sell your game". So rather than competing they made an untimatum because they still owned that large market share. EA or Valve for that matter cannot afford losing the retail sector.

Maybe I'm confusing something, but usually the stuff on steam costs just as much as a retail-copy, sometimes even less, and that isn't even accounting for their "midweek madness"...

Steam is still locked into the retail price as set by the publisher/owner. Steam works well with publishers and has a ton of data about how big sales move more games you move more games you get people cluing their friends into those games and you see a bump in sales long after the end of the big sale just via word of mouth generated among gamers. they been doing this stuff a long time and have mined tons of data about how sales work and how well they work.

But they still have to follow the msrp of the publisher they cant take dragon age 4 on steam sell it for 30 bucks release day when its 60 on origin and in retail stores, even smaller games they have to go with what the owner wants, but a few cases where vales actively urging a game to undersell itself in the indy side has made some games more massive hits than they would have been because they were such good value they sold 10x more units than they expected, and made more profit as a result.

Every publisher is dreaming of full digital how could you blame them? it will crush the middleman, outside of the pirates that manage to hack this stuff they probably will make a mint, but your retailiers the smaller chunk they get and its moved into EA's hands or activisions or whoevers that is 100% pure profit, no packaging no dvds or blu rays to burn, the biggest costs are tech support.

in EAs case that would be a major cost because their customer support is quite possibly the only one where the customer is always wrong until you can come up for detailed documentation proving you in fact own the game in question and even if you get assurances to one thing or another out of them there is 0 guarantee anything will come of it.

Really hope origin dies a flaming death however there is no way i want EA data mining my personal information, my gaming habits via their service, i know value/steam does the same stuff but i trust value a million times more than i trust EA to use any of that information for good.

long live steam, and direct2drive

 

[Siege_TF]

OF course EA wants a 100% digital distribution model; it's easier to get away with DRM and other bullshit because you had to be online to get the game in the first place, and they could get away with charging retail distribution price.

It's the model that lets them bring us frogs up to a slow boil without jumping out of the pot.

 

[The Lugz]

i've got it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcQXsbrAdIw&feature=player_detailpage#t=86s

it's arms dealing.

i hope its not arms dealing. EA cant afford to shoot itself in the foot anymore

i doubt they have any feet left from their previous mistakes, but a wheelchair isn't slowing them down any if anything they took it to a skate park!

 

[Rowski]

In Q4 2012, EA reported that it earned a whopping $949 million, as in nearly a billion dollars, through retail sales alone, which was also an increase from 2011.

Wow, so EA has released figures for time periods that have yet to happen, count me impressed.
Can I borrow your time machine this weekend? I want to go play Half-Life 3 for a bit. Don't worry, I'll return it yesterday.