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EA Sports to abandon physical media on PC
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 1st May 2009
EA's Peter Moore has confirmed that the EA Sports label will soon drop physical distribution for the PC platform.
Speaking to VG247 in a multi-part interview, Moore said that he felt the future of PC gaming is going to be online and heavily reliant on digital distribution and that he is keen to see that EA Sports isn't left behind.
So, all well and good - but it also seems that Moore may make the payment model for EA Sports games on the PC more reliant on microtransactions, rather than standard business models.
"You’re going to see us take a lot of our learnings from what we’re doing with our games in Asia, where I’ll give you the game for free, or a certain level for free,” said Moore (via RockPaperShotgun).
The interview doesn't offer any hard facts or dates, but it does indicate a definite intent - an intent that begs a lot of questions, like 'Why not put EA Sports games on Steam?' and 'Won't you alienate the more casual gamer who may not know how to access games online if you abandon boxed products?'.
Do you think you have answers to those questions? Let us know your thoughts in the forums and tell us whether you think EA's move is a good or bad idea.
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EA will support Steam. They are on there already.
Some games are, not all, for some territories, not all.
Surely 'EA Sports' customers (not usually the 'nerdy' gamer) would rather buy it in a shop?
and that is the worst part of digital distribution. a lack of global support for games, especially when there aren't any retail stores.
I don't mind "microtransactions" if they're spent on legitimate, game-enhancing content, but I also would never buy a "free" game and then pay more than the usual asking price in the form of a hundred smaller payments just to get the whole thing. The Fallout 3 stuff, for example, that's DLC I consider worthwhile. About ten dollars for a good ten-plus hours of content (taking replay value into account) is well worth it in my mind, but the important thing is that such expansions enhance the game, not replace it. I really don't know if I could stomach having to buy my game piece-by-piece. With Fallout 3, the DLC meshes into the main game experience and makes every subsequent play-through more enjoyable (the same thing can be seen in Mass Effect, albeit there's only one DLC available so far). But new guns, or new teams, or whatever, that's pushing it when there's nothing to actually go along with that extra content.
Unfortunately, publishers control what goes, not gamers. This is the future, and it ****ing sucks.
That's one reason why I love RockBand. Bought the first game, loads of DLC, bought the second game, exported tracks from the first game, bought more DLC.
Look at GH. Buy GH3. Buy GH:A. Buy GH:WT, and DLC. Buy GH:M. Where's the compatibility between titles? If you're going to make me spend £40 or so on a game, and then expect me to spend the same again on DLC, don't then write the whole lot off because you fancy putting out a new game. Make the old content usable in the new title.
This is the PC version. How many shops sell used PC games?
Will Ea actually make these sports games not use the PS2 engines, that was an embarassment for EA considering a lower end PC now can play consoles prots on highs ettings.
Looking forward to the day where I download every game purchase and keep my contact with spotty teenage shop assistants to the very minimum required ;)
Not bothered about various game boxes clogging up my house, threw over a hundred away a few weeks ago.
For now, but I think it's pretty clear that many publishers want to try and move to online distribution for as much of their stuff as possible.
They crying all the day because piracy, but they expect for us (in most case) to buy games just cause they say that. Normally if somebody are interested, 'he' donload a demo, play, then he made a decision about the game. "Buy it, or not?". Today, most of the games (even big titles) don't have Demo. If you want to try is, ypo need to buy it, or go to TPB and download it for free.
Well, the decision, that are you buy the game after you download it, is point of honor...
In short: Publishers want money for nothin', and crying because customers go to a torrent site instead of a Shop.
While Steam just works, the EA counterpart is the definition of it just can't work.
Also, has EA ever thought about the fact the size of a Game can easily exceed the download limits set by certain isps?
I bought C&C3 tried to download it from EA Download Manager... and... It says the game is not avaiable in my country... lol... I payed, and I don't get the money or the game... That's why I like Steam and don't like EADM...
QFT
I never did like sports games on console or PC. Good thing it's only for the sports gams
How long after this do you think it will be before EA drop physical media on all games?
No Internet? Is this 95? lol
As long as you can buy the games, download them and play them it is still the best digital distribution system out there though, as the others can't even deliver that.
Yeah for ignorance, you can install as many palces as you wish. Slow? Yeah, on a commodore 64 maybe, time for a Pc check there buddy. You fail witht his Bs post.