Electronic Arts Predicts the Demise of Videogame Stores

necrosis said:
Thing is B&M stores are already dead for video games that most people here play. PC games.

-- Gamestop has been nothing but a open box, beat up, shit cart for at least the last 5 years.
-- Target has dropped PC games like a rock. Still there but slim pickings lately.
-- Best Buy is hit or miss.

Because of this I have moved to digital. Steam only. EA's thing can kiss my ass. Lost a BF3 sale with that crap.
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Only applicable in countries with your context however.

In our case,
#1 We're supposed to pretend we're in the US to buy Steam games.
#2 Philippine Peso to US Dollar conversion rates aren't exactly favorable to us (and the bank would be doing the conversion for us...).
#3 Good luck with downloading a single game for days!
 
A good 90% or more of my PC games would have been impossible for me to buy locally without steam as many stores near me either carry no PC games a all or have about a dozen or so and normally half of those are the sims or addons for the sims.

For people like me EA is right but they are almost 8 years late, saying that though if they had only started 5 years ago they may have had a much better chance.
 
guess EA didnt think about the monthly bandwith limits internet providers give the avg joe out there.
 
Origin Systems produced some very good games... until EA shut them down, so now EA resurrects the Origin name for their download service? EA, we gamers that loved Origin Systems will not forgive you because:

We never saw Privateer 3.
We never saw Privateer Online.
We never saw Wing Commander Online.

We have not forgotten! :mad:
 
Video games stores haven't taken off yet, so maybe when we live on the moon, but in like 4000 years. get stuffed EA.
 
...and I bet they won't count digital downloads in their sales numbers. O noes! Evary 1 iz a pirate!
 
That essentially means the end of cheap used games. Consoles will fail long before this happens.
 
Vested interest or not, Wilson might not be far off on his prediction.
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It cannot be a perdiction when it is a known fact. This guy is trying to sound like he is some bbilliant swammy perdicting the future but all he is doing is saying something that is obvious to the world and has been for some time.

The rise of online game services like Steam and Impluse as well as the F2P revolution now underway have been spelling the end of the brick and mortar PC Gaming outles for years.
 
Amazing how not so long ago all these companies were complaining about not supporting PC gamers because of"rampant piracy".Not worth the investment,blah..blah and always chose to ignore the fact that most PC gamers had switched to digital downloads a loong time ago..Now....they have a bone to pick with Gamestop and have declared war on used game sales and want to push their own download service,its all about gamers who more frequently use these services..Now they want to talk about all the sales made via downloads....I call bullshit on them all!!
 
The two gamestop's in town here do not carry PC games. so...

I love to go in and look at games in the store, but who can turn down steam sales?
 
"The reality is what we're doing, which is very uncomfortable, which is putting the control in the hands of the consumer and letting them decide how they want to play." - Willson

Allow me to fix this:

"The reality is what we're doing, which is very comfortable, which is putting the control of the IP in our hands and letting us decide the customer can't resell it." - Honest Willson
 
EA release origin
EA predicts end of videogame stores
Origin fails
EA predicts resurgence of videogame stores
 
Ya'll keep mentioning the used game market, but the thing is ... all the publishers are working to kill that aswell, it started with bonus content if you buy new instead of used, and now it's moving into removing entire sections of the game (like the entire multiplayer) if you buy used instead of new. And it's not just EA doing it, ubisoft announced the same thing and you can bet bliz-activision won't be far behind.
 
It has been a while since I purchased a PC game in a store. I could care less about having a physical copy. Personally I like using Steam. It is easy to use, I do not feel that it is bloatware, and the prices are reasonable. Plus, when Steam has a sale, I can find some really cheap games. For example I purchased Batman Arkham Asylum for $8.00. I don't think I could have walked into gamestop and purchased that game used for my PS3 at that price.
 
Example:

Duke Forever, Gamestop 60 bucks, everywhere else 40 bucks. Yes Gamestop, eat shit and die.
 
cocheese256 said:
Plus, when Steam has a sale, I can find some really cheap games. For example I purchased Batman Arkham Asylum for $8.00. I don't think I could have walked into gamestop and purchased that game used for my PS3 at that price.
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I haven't been in one of their stores since 2004-2005. The PC game selection got so small and the prices were always higher than Best Buy. The only advantage they had over Best Buy at the time was getting new releases a day or two before Best Buy did. Big whoop.
 
MajorDomo said:
Andrew Wilson from Electronic Arts is predicting the end of buying games from your local GameStop or its equivalent in the near future. The change will not come in one fell swoop, but rather a migration of gamers to digital downloads and streaming.
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Sure as hell won't buy my games through Origin though, STEAM has already proven to be informative, easy to use, sales tax free, and way more popular with publishers; Origin is clunky, god awful to navigate, exists purely for security checking purposes, and I haven't tried yet, but I'm sure I'll get hit with sales taxes, as Bioware likes to do that when adding points to get DLC.
 
drakken said:
Hell when was the last time you bought a PC game at gamestop or some other retail store. Most of the games I buy are through online shops like amazon or online like steam
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I pre-ordered Skyrim a week ago at a local Gamestop. Theres something about being able to pick up a game the day it is released with all the extras and not worrying about UPS or FedEX fubaring my order.

Brick and mortar games stores sell the games for the same price and don't charge shipping and handling. Not much to complain about. Sometimes it's just fun to browse and talk to other gamers, in person.
 
How many pc users actually have an optical drive anyway?

Internet caps won't last very long, especially as government begins to get involved for better or for worse. The EA big-wig is correct in pointing out the obvious, but man do I want his origin service to fail spectacularly.
 
Kuraudo said:
How many pc users actually have an optical drive anyway?
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Err...I do, I like to watch the movies I purchased prior to Netflix on the PC/Laptop/PS3, and there handy for all my current and classic games too!
 
Kuraudo said:
How many pc users actually have an optical drive anyway?
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I use mine like two or three times a year. I bought a $7 cable kit just to connect it to a computer in my house on the rare occasion that I need one. They take up too much space and get used too little. Screw 'em!
 
I think the optical drive was the least expensive part in my rig. Oh wait I think I paid $2 more to get the one I wanted in black.:rolleyes:
Back on topic, when it comes to purchasing PS3 games, I usually get a hard copy. I mainly do that because I have a very limited amount of hard drive space. Plus I work 55-65 hours a week. I unfortunately do not have the time I wish I had to dedicate to games. There are very few console titles that I must have on the first day of release. I usually wait a while for the price to come down because I am usually already engrossed into a game on the PC. But when I do finally purchase one, I usually buy it through Amazon and use my prime membership for no shipping.
 
This is funny coming from EA. They are the publisher who restricted the sales of their digital copy on D2D Gamersgate and Impulse to certain region only. Only on Steam where EA games are available to everyone around the world, but even then, the pricing is different.

And now they are further restricting their games like Battlefield 3 from Steam, the only and only place where the digital copy of their games are available to the entire world besides Origin. Origin itself has regional pricing too and other limitations.

Its like they are discouraging the digital purchase of BF3 and encouraging the fans to go out and get a retail copy. And here they want to predict the demise of retail sales
 
I know what everyone wants instead. A client and a store for each publisher. Wouldn't that be awesome! :rolleyes:
 
I use my optical drive a bunch. Crazy, right?
I don't like downloading games, I HAVE to have the case, disc, and whatever reading materials is in there. That's why I had to buy Fear 3 off of Amazon. I can't find it on PC anywhere. Not Target, Wal-Mart, Best-buy, or gamestop. WTH? They carry it on the consoles but not PC? Bullshit. They should carry "multi-platform games" on all platforms. not exclude one. Fuckers.
 
Kuraudo said:
How many pc users actually have an optical drive anyway?
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I like how this is now the most sensationalist comment in the thread.

ATTENTION: This thread is now about whether or not you have an optical drive and/or your opinion on the prevlance of optical drives in desktop computers.
 
I thought with most games we only buy the license to play the game/use the software?
Having a CD/DVD case, a manual and disk that can be damaged to me seams like less value than the ability to download as many times as wanted while the company used is still running.

I know some people like to say they prefer to have a physical copy of things so they have something they can hold and see where their money went but i can see and hold my hard drives and they don't take up an entire room in my house like the all the movies, albums, TV shows and games i have would if i had normal retail copy's instead of using digital downloads.
 
But what else am I supposed to do with all these damn Best Buy gift cards I keep getting for Christmas?
 
c0mad0r said:
Not like this is a hard prediction. All anyone has to do is look at what recently happened to the great empire of video rentals. From Planet Hollywood Video to the latest Chapter 13 demise of Blockbuster Video, formerly a ViaCom subsidiary. Prior to that, it was the great empire of music stores. From Sam Goodies to Tower Records or Sun Coast... all gone due to this "Internet" thing ;).

Point is, it's just a matter of time before Steam or Steam-like services dominate the "norm". I honestly thought GameFly and NetFlix would have killed off the whole GameStop thing by now, but I guess some people are still in the habit of going to the store. Give 5yrs and they'll go away.
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Ahhh the good ol days.

Don't forget Camelot Music. FYE is still kickin but they hardly have anything worth buying.

I admit i can't remember the last cd i've bought since i got my Droid and can put upto 16gigs worth of music on it and plug it into my aftermarket cd player.

Back to the topic at hand though i hope games don't go all digital. I trade my games all the time at local game stores and GameStop. It will suck when you can't do that anymore.
 
The one thing that keeps Gamestop going is the used console game sales. And I don't think the digital download business is going to catch on with the consoles the way it did with PCs.
 
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