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EA CEO Says Discs Aren't Going Away Despite Digital Growth
It seems like just yesterday that EA CEO John Riccitiello was saying that digital game sales will overtake retail in 2011. Actually, come to think of it, that was Saturday. Despite those claims, Riccitiello has also stated from the same interview that discs aren't going away "any time soon."
In a continuation of his interview with Industry Gamers, Riccitiello explained how digital and streaming don't work as well for some games:
"I think the disc can actually be a great starting point for a digital business, like an MMO, World of Warcraft, for instance. Pushing that off to the side for a minute, we make services, we don’t make products, and I think the challenge I would have in answering the question the way you framed it is I don’t think people want a streaming game service. I think they want their games to work. At times, that will be delivered best with streaming. At times, you should just download the game. For example, I think it’d pretty silly for us to stream Scrabble to you. We’re talking about three minutes, you’ve downloaded the words perfectly, you can play with your friends, the tiles move back and forth… why would you want to pay for bandwidth for us to redraw a Scrabble board sixty times a second? That’s just sort of bad math, if nothing else."
Riccitiello went on to say that streaming games in particular is "a really inefficient way to do it," specifically referencing the OnLive service, which he says he hasn't played recently. His main point seems to be that whatever the technology delivering a game, "the consumer wants it to be largely invisible."
Next week: Riccitiello jumps back to saying digital alone is the future. Stay tuned!
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