Earlier today, stories were swirling regarding EA’s alleged decision to stop shipping physical games in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The news, which first surfaced on German website Games Wirtschaft, was picked up by many major gaming websites. Our initial assumption was that something had been lost in translation, and it turns out that’s the case.
In a statement, the publisher said: “We have not stopped physical distribution of our games in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland and players will continue to be able to buy our games from retailers across the region. Recent reports stating otherwise are an inaccurate reflection of disclosures made in EA Germany's statutory financial statements.”
Effectively, the publisher is restructuring its Cologne branch, but it doesn’t sound like this will have any impact on the distribution of physical games in the region. Prior reports had claimed that it’d “no longer generate sales with packaged goods”, but it’s possible it’s simply outsourcing that aspect of its business to a third-party, like Koch Media who has worked with subsidiary Codemasters in the past.
Ultimately, the company is clear that it will not stop shipping physical games. This is important because, while the original story centred specifically on German-speaking territories, there was concern that it could eventually apply the same philosophy worldwide. And when you’ve got Activision effectively shipping Blu-rays with 70MB on them to retailers, it’s a legit worry.
[source gameswirtschaft.de, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 10
I’m curious as to what the factors are that would allow the PC gaming market to go mostly digital with little issue but not console?
@DiggleDog Console market is heading to all-digital, and will get there, but there's still a sizeable physical market.
@DiggleDog Pc gaming went full digital because of the low adoption of blue ray drives, also a used copy is useless because the activation code is one time only.
The headline of this article shouldn't be EA will not stop shipping physical games to Germany because that was never going to happen. The headline should be about how a section of the media jumped to conclusions and made assumptions and EA felt compelled to clarify their position to stop people being misinformed by lazy, sensation-seeking journalists. Kudos for PS for not taking the bait and reporting on the original non-story.
@DiggleDog the price of games is a big one.
Nein, nein, nein!
@Lando_ which emergency service would you like Sir?
@DiggleDog I don't think pc gamers had a lot of choice but to go digital, physical products simply stopped appearing in stores. It's unknown how much impact that had on the pc user base, maybe it'd have grown a lot quicker if they were available, maybe not.
Digital vs physical version stat says a lot.
I remember my last big cd shopping for PC was around 2008. I bought a few second hand games just for nostalgia later, however big games are cheaper every now and then on e.g. Steam.
The other hand, since I have a Ps, I found some second hand games which were even cheaper than digital version with discount.
But to be fair, it made me think .
I am not sure, it was worth spending extra £100 for disc version of PS. At least not in my case just for gaming.
I really don't want to go full digital. I want to keep my things close to me. Maybe it's time to find a new passion.
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