EA VP predicts shift to downloadable media within 10 years
by Ross Miller 
{ Mar 3rd 2006 at 2:00PM }
Back when the Internet was a telephone line
and a lot fuzzy sounds (remember when 56k was fast?) and hard drives rarely passed a GB in size, if someone had told us
that the music industry could thrive on downloads alone, we would have laughed in their face (and waited 20 minutes to
snag that "ultra rare" demo version of Nirvana's Polly off of Napster). Of course, within the last
10 years, technology has grown by leaps and bounds--hard drives can hold hundreds of GBs, processors have hastened from
900MHz to 3.2GHz, and you can download a song within a matter of seconds. Apple's iTunes music store recently celebrated
its 1 billionth song downloaded, its video service is thriving, and its only a matter of time before all forms of
entertainment are a mouse click (and credit card transaction) away.The Vice President of Electronic Arts Europe, Dr. Jens Uwe Intat (pictured), foresees that shift occurring within the next ten years. According to him, "CDs, DVDs and boxed games will be as antiquated as cassette tapes and vinyl records." A bold statement from a executive in one of the gaming industry's biggest players. If this is an indication of EA's commitment to digital distribution, then it more or less ensures the future of downloadable video games.
There is one caveat to his words, however, that coincide with the spirit of any business. Dr. Intant laments how Apple has been able to keep their song prices at $0.99 per song--a low figure that angers many of the corporate suits in the music business. The iTunes music store has a monopoly on downloadable music, which in this case benefits the consumer. Dr. Intant, however, notes that with so many different consoles available, a monopoly would be impossible, and publishers could have more leverage on the prices of their titles.
Understandable, but it could be very aggravating if EA decides to price Madden 2009 at, say, $65.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nushio @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:06PM
If this is done, then I hope that EA titles (a.k.a. "sequels") sell for a lot less.
Maybe make "Madden: The game", and charge users for a small quantity for "Madden: 2998 roster update 3"
Nick @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:16PM
Reminds me of what Bill Gates said (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=12398); I wonder if the comment, coming from EA instead of Microsoft, will entice nearly as many knee-jerk reactions and dismissals.
Nick
Matt @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:18PM
$.99 a low price per song? The industry charges more money per song than on a traditional medium. They don't have to deal with manufacturing, packing, shipping, ect. Online music stores offer worse quality product at a higher price point. I will continue to "bypass" them until the market dictates a fair price.
Gonzo @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:22PM
I gotta tell you, I really don't see that happening. First of all they have to make computers a little less sensitive. Thankfully IBM isn't peddling their crap to the public anymore but their machines are notoriously touchy. I had one which (according to their crappy support team) needed to be reformatted every other month. Not only that but everything in that machine broke within the three years I could stand it, the hard drive, the cd drive, the floppy drive, everything but the motherboard itself.
Sorry about that rant there. My point is, I wouldn't buy a game (an expensive one at least) without getting the disks so (if I like it) I can install it into my other&future computers or the same computer if I need to reformat it.
I still install Unreal Tournament (yea the original and 2004) into any new computer I get and I originally got that game when I was living at mom's and I know that I wouldn't still be allowed to download it from whatever random service after 7 years. If I wanted it I'd probably have to buy it again. Imagine having to do that with cds and movies too?
Their best bet is to make the dvds even smaller in size and bigger in space.
d @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:27PM
Unless they came up with some cd-key type system that it could only but put on one console I don't see how it would work. Even if they did that what happens if your console broke or harddrive crashed, how would it distinguish a person's second console from someone else’s so you can get all the games you bought the first time. With Itunes I think your able to share a song with 5 accounts, there's no way that would happen with a game.
modeps @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:36PM
THIS MAN IS A GENIUS! Oh wait, he's stating what's already happening. They can thank Valve for paving the way with Steam.
Matthew @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:42PM
I think, really, this is a no-brainer for future content distribution. Even Nintendo with their downloadable game service. So I think the companies are really betting that this type of distribution will happen in the future. I don't know how that will effect physical retail outlets. But anyway, the times we're in now are very exciting. It seems like all those fictional technologies are really becoming a reality.
Scott Daniel @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:03PM
I am shocked that high-ranking EA exec would state this publicly. While it is true, it is also very risky considering that in the short-term, publishers still need big box retailers (WM, BestBuy, etc.) to distribute content.
For example, why should Wal Mart or Best Buy be committed to growing their business when EA or ATVI is attempting to make the Big Box Software model extinct? Big Box retailers have VG sales/profits baked into their financials - the shift from retail sales to online downloads will deliver serious financial pain to the trade. As an EA shareholder, I'm a little disappointed to hear this said publicly, b/c in the short-term publishers still need the big boxes to distribute content.
mandarin @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:15PM
What exactly is he a doctor of?
Virtuous @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:20PM
A significant percentage of the population doesn't have high-speed Internet and may not get it for years to come. Many of those that do have relatively slow connections. Broadband providers want companies such as EA and Google to pay to use their connections. What EA needs to do NOW is improve the quality of their games.
Benny Ben @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:37PM
This is soom good news. I'm hoping that video games to go the sameway as music and soon movies will go to digital distribution.. I'm sure mircrosot is happy about this news about EA moving to digital distrubution in the near future. Im sure sony is really upset about hearing news from EA that a company like EA which is 100% pro sony is now shifting its ideas to that of apple which u have to remember the apple ipod killed the sony walkman and minidisc. And sony is sure probably upet about apple selling 1billion itunes song which is a confirmed indication that CDS are dying and eventually spure more intrest in digital distribution. I wonder with the ps3 or ps4 will it support digital downloads for gamign or wheater the ps3 will support blu ray and the ps4 support HVDS instead of digital distribution for gaming. I think it will be cool to have a discless gamign console. After nextgen i bet any money that the ps4 will be the only console with disks while xbox720 and nintendo6 have built ini HDD or Flashdrives for gaming downloads. I wonder if casual gamers will download games off the net. Will casual gamers buy madden09 through digital distribution, i dont know since most casual gamers own dial up. If anything i hope apple launch a diskless console so it can sure up a good relationship with EA and ruin the EA-Playstation relationship for good and bury the playstation.
Tony @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:05PM
See the things is that downloads right now are an option. They aren't a requirement. I don't think anyone can realistically state that physical mediums will ever be replaced.
Today, ven with the best internet I could realistically afford, it would take me countless hours to download, say, Elder Scrolls IV. I'd rather go to the store and buy it. It would probably take less time.
Maybe in another ten years, as this guy is saying, but even then, I'm going to want a tangible copy. I like having something in my hands, something I don't have to look at onscreen. I think this is something very true of human beings in general. They don't like the "idea" of something as much as they like actual, physical "reality" of it.
Even if this does become more commonplace, I hope there's always some sort of physical option.
hector @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:06PM
This will benefit the companies — if consumers are willing to buy into it. It will harm consumers, because it will give them less control. In effect, gamers will no longer be buying games — they will be renting them.
I like disks and cartridges. Once you buy them, they're yours. Downloads are ephemeral, fragile things. Not to mention the bugs. Downloads will create a dependency relationship. I want to buy a product, I don't want to enter into a relationship with a corporation, thank you.
dotun.o @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:08PM
When "industry players" make this comment on redundancy of physical media, I hope they only mean how we will simply buy the games, and not also how we will keep them? That is, I hope they don't mean that CDs, etc. will die completely; they should remember that even iTunes still allows you to burn downloaded songs to discs for portability, backup and offline access.
Doug @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:31PM
I don't know about other people...but I don't really want to have to download game manuals as .pdfs and print them out. I like getting a case and a manual I can actually hold on to. I better not have to pay $50-60 dollars on a game if it all turns digital. Prices must drop.
Spartacus @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:38PM
As stated previously, Gates has mentioned this before when confronted with the whole "Blu-Ray/HD-DVD" debate. Why when he said it it was so controversial, and when EA says it it's just accepted?
nojok3 @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:55PM
LOL going from 900 Mhz to 3.2 ghz is nothing when you are discussing computers with a gb or less. 900 mhz processors is way ahead of computers with 1 gb hard drives.
Nick @ Mar 3rd 2006 10:09PM
All of the points people are making against digital distribution seem pretty moot. Everything mentioned can be solved through technological means and most of them already have been addressed with Valve's Steam system.
Reinstallation: After you buy the game and download it, burn the cache of it to a disc. You can do this with Steam and it works just fine. Lose the cache? Re-download it if necessary. That right there is an improvement over the retail based approach; if you lose or damage your disc for a retail game then you're going to be buying it all over again. If the service goes offline for whatever reason after you've lost your disc then you've lost an advantage of digital distribution but that does not make it a fault of digital distribution.
Getting Physical: Some people like box art, discs, and manuals. That's great and those all add to the cost of the game. Shipping the product to stores also costs money. You even have to spend gas money, or at least your mom does, to go and get the game. Regardless, you want something physical for whatever personal reason you have. I would imagine publishers would have some sort of way for you to purchase those separately as well as keep a few copies on store shelves for the bandwidth-challenged consumers.
As far as game manuals, I personally think it would be nice to see them built right into the game in a way I can access any time. At the very least, it would be nice to have a digital version of the manual accessible within the game. I dislike flipping through pages, the smell of dead trees and ink, and getting paper cuts. Let's not forget that a digital version could utilize 3D objects, interactivity, etc. But that's a bit off-topic; just a side note about what I think would be cool to have.
Publishers?: Yes, I said publishers a minute ago. But the whole reason of moving to digital distribution is to get rid of publishing costs, right? Well, that's what developers would love to see, but we'll most likely see the publishers of today transform into digital distributors because of bandwidth and support costs that most developers don't want to deal with. So, since a publisher will still be handling the majority of games - digitally distributed or otherwise - I would imagine they would keep producing retail shelf versions.
Connection Speed Too Slow: A lot of people seem to believe that broadband is still rare. The landscape has changed much since 2000 and in late 2005 over 42% of the population had broadband class internet access (http://www.physorg.com/news6899.html). By now, it could very well be the majority of the population that has broadband; AOL is now making their cost for dialup and broadband the same and that will result in switchers.
While it's true that it would still take hours to download a multi-gigabyte game on the upper end of current broadband services, who said you had to have the whole game before you could begin to play? Half-Life 2 allows you to play as the game downloads. I realize this would be a problem for non-linear games but developers could remedy that by just temporarily blocking off access to parts of the world not yet downloaded. While some may complain that they want to access their entire RPG world at once, there would hopefully be plenty to do in downloaded areas that would consume a few hours.
Continuous background downloading of games would also help the situation. For example, allowing you to play another game while you wait for your newly purchased game to load. Maybe watch a movie, listen to some music, or watch TV. Don't forget that in the coming years, broadband speed will increase quite a bit. Personally, I've been freely upgraded from 1.5Mbps to 8Mbps since 2001. That's over five times faster in 5 years so I expect over the next ten years I will see a move to 20Mbps and beyond. At 20Mbps, it would take 7 minutes to download 1GB of data.
For those who say it may be faster to run to the store and get a game, you're right. You would have access to the entire game in about a half an hour's time, more or less. However, think of it this way - you've waited weeks, months, maybe even years to play this game; what are 3 more hours when the cost of the game is reduced? Will that extra time you spend waiting (and possibly playing as it downloads) really agonize you so that it's worth spending the extra cash to get it that much faster?
Anyway, those are just my views on it all. As I said, a lot of the issues with this approach to distribution can be solved or have already been solved.
Nick
raindog151 @ Mar 4th 2006 12:17AM
"All of the points people are making against digital distribution seem pretty moot. Everything mentioned can be solved through technological means and most of them already have been addressed with Valve's Steam system."
Yes, all very valid until valve goes out of business. Then what? then at best, we use a 'cache' to remove the validation from the game. Thus breaking god knows how many laws (now) and god know how many (then).
With brick and mortar discs, at least all I have to worry about is my hardware dying. As evidenced by the famicom clones today, if a need is there, a demand will be met.
I think there will be a place for online distro, but it will never replace owning media. Same reason I don't play MMORPGs, a MUD owner may ask for small cash donations, but medium - big companies disappear all the time.
Virtuous @ Mar 4th 2006 6:57PM
If EA doesn't improve the quality of its games, it will be a much smaller company in 10 years. No one will care how EA distributes its games.
Vejadu @ Mar 6th 2006 10:18AM
The move to digital distribution benefits only the publishers. The price will likely remain the same, but they'll save millions by not having to pay for discs, cases, manuals, shipping, design and they can charge retail price instead of wholesale.
It will also eliminate benefits for consumers. If digital distribution becomes the norm, we will no longer be able to:
- sell used games
- trade used games
- build a physical game library
Adrian @ Apr 6th 2006 12:36AM
I would think Digital Distribution would benefit both the consumers and the developers. Small time developers have a chance to flourish if they can create great titles where as in old fashioned physical distribution methods they could not. Shelf space is usually limited to bigger budget titles for publishers with the financial backing. I would imagine prices would be lowered, less the packaging, shipping and all the middlemen involved.
As stated before broadband speeds will keep increasing, lessening delivery time for digital content. Xbox360 is already doing, Sony Ps3 will do it and PCs have been doing it for a while.
I would also think there would be some type of subscription model created where you could pay a monthly fee and have access a large library of games on demand. The physical media holding any type of digital content is used as an old fashioned method of delivery. Just my opinion.