EA believes that delivering direct to the customer is the future

Electronic Arts invested $ 150 Million in digital distribution last year and according to their figures, it’s about to pay off. The company expects direct to customer sales to blow through the $ 500 Million mark in the fiscal year of 2010.

EA’s online offering has grown in the last year which includes; Battlefield Hero’s, an expansion for Mirror’s Edge and Godfather II as well as a surfeit of creature parts in Spore. “Direct to consumer is the future,” announced John Riccitiello, chief executive of Electronic Arts.

Full game downloads and micro transactions generated revenues of about $80 million in fiscal 2009 which is nearly double what it did in 2008 and its because of this growth that EA said that it would consider all online-enabled games for both, free and paid downloadable content.

While the prospect of only using downloads as a distribution method sounds promising and in the end would ultimately be cheaper for the gamer, it’s unlikely that it would happen anytime soon with bandwidth or lack thereof, being available to their entire target market. Despite the obstacles that lie ahead, we can’t help but feel the ground rumble as change approaches.

 

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