EA Boss Recognizes The Economic Trends Of Infinite Goods
from the don't-hear-that-every-day dept
At this point, we’re so used to execs from big entertainment firms denying the existence of the inevitable trends impacting their industry, that it’s truly a surprise when someone appears to clearly understand what’s happening. Slashdot points us to the shocking news that EA’s CEO knows that the business model for his industry is changing, and that the current one is becoming obsolete:
“In the next five years, we’re all going to have to deal with this. In China, they’re giving games away for free. People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.”
Can you imagine hearing the same thing from the head of a movie studio or record label? It’s nice to finally see a CEO who recognizes the economics at hand — even if it means his former cash cow will be obsolete and his company will need to embrace entirely new business models.
Filed Under: business model, economics, free, infinite goods, video games
Companies: ea
Comments on “EA Boss Recognizes The Economic Trends Of Infinite Goods”
finally, someone from a large and recognized company with some clout has pulled there head a few inches out of the sand.
Recognising a threat is not equal to actually fighting against it. With EA seeming to buy up every promising small development house they can, their aggressive and sometimes horrible overtime policies, their habit of releasing Sports-Genre-Current-Year games by the truckload*, and still many unanswered questions about how they use the data gathered by in-game advertising already (BF 2142) they’re more likely to be part of the problem than actually provide any solution that helps consumers instead of just helping EA kill off a few more competitors.
* heaven forbid we just have content/roster updates via internet, then someone wouldn’t have to pay up to $80 for the same graphics but updated text year after year!
I’ll wait until I see the proof, because right now, the EA Online Store wants more money to “save” the copy of the software that you downloaded so that 6 months later, you can download it again.
Re: they do not ask you to pay to save
Alex, what are you talking about? if you buy anything EA you can always download it later. It’s not only in their best interest but cost free to save the file, since its stored on their cache it doesn’t matter if a hundred or a thousand users need it stored, only 1 copy has to be in their system.
Even the games themselves if you don’t buy em from EA you can get them from sites such as Direct2Drive where it is stored permanently, cd key and all. I love free things but I pay for my games on direct2drive because its a wonderful resource in that fashion. They even use a fileplanet dedicated stream to download, so the downloads max out your connection.
Additionally, as long as you have your cd key, you can always get the pirated copy and put in your legit key. Thats the whole point of fair use right there, ala backups.
I agree with #2 a lot though. EA is known to make wonderful statements of cognition and follow up with more statements of “eventually” followed by 0 action.
Other revenue streams
So what are other revenue streams?
1. In game advertisement.
2. Don’t sell the game to the players. Like Prince who sold a CD to a newspaper which gave it to their subscribers. Buy a Subaru and get Bioshock for free?
3. Including a player’s guide, novelization, comic book, poster, soundtrack CD, stickers, t-shirt, etc., with the game. Thus the packaging has value as opposed to the game. Purchase a real (not tiny) Master Chief helmet (free game inside)?
4. Playing online provides additional value beyond playing alone. This wont work for all games (e.g. Mass Effect).
5. In game sales like the he infamous Oblivion horse armor or wizard’s tower. Pay for additional weaponry or short cuts to beating the game.
6. Subscription based. Personally, I would have given away World of Warcraft and only sold the monthly subscriptions.
Not that I like them all. Just some first thoughts,
CEO at least recognizes the problem
At least he did not say something real foolish like “everything is great and we will be releasing a new Madden game every year for life”.
I took some games to EB Games in CA to trade in that I new would never see the light of day again. I was not expecting much, just something to help pay for some new games.
When the guy offered me 10 cents for some of the games, I said he couldn’t be serious. He was. I immediately turned around and gave all the games to kids that were in the store. I think 10 cents is an insult and if those kids were not in the store, I would have broken each one and left them on the counter.
Molded plastic bucket manufacturer and supplier facing a tough exporting shrinkage from the third quater of the year 2008. plastic injection molding services from Glory plastics China is good, just contact us through plastic jar manufacturer now. plastic blow molding is a production process for plastic plastic bottle manufacturer and other PET hollw conatiners.