Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

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Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby JaoSming on Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:38 pm

New Article pretty much confirming what I thought and summarizing the below article
http://www.vg247.com/2009/04/30/ea-spor ... ays-moore/




http://www.vg247.com/2009/04/30/peter-m ... round-one/
Going back to your core titles for a second, I want to talk about the PC SKUs on your core games. You very unceremoniously dropped the PC version of Madden last year, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth…

Oh yeah.

…and then said in June ‘08 that your PC SKUs would be back in ‘09.

I’ll tell you exactly what I said. We’ve got to look at the PC in a very different what to we are, which is shipping discs in a market that was, unfortunately, just disappearing. And unfortunately the market was going down in sales but going up in costs, as I was supporting people that didn’t buy the game but I was supporting online as well as customer service support. As you can imagine, and we’ve talked about it a little bit with Tiger, we’ve got to go online with this stuff.

It’s not that we’re abandoning the PC user, the guy that wants to play sports games on the PC. I’ve got to look at teams, and I’ve got to keep people employed and therefore games have to be profitable, otherwise where do I get the money to reinvest in building the games?

Sometimes gamers don’t like to hear that, that this is a business, and I always tiptoe around it a little bit, because it’s a creative thing, and they think we have an obligation, which we do, to do things creatively, whether it makes money or not.

The sheer truth of it is that it’s got to make money because I need the capital the following year to buy more dev kits, to hire more engineers. And you have to make tough choices with business, much more now than two of three years ago, when you could afford to do some things that maybe weren’t profitable. And we need to find different business models to go after that consumer again.

You’re going to see some announcements in the next few months about how we’re going to do that. I get a lot of abuse. You read my blog, I’m sure. “Why can’t you tell us? We demand to know!” I tried a few posts ago to explain how the world of announcements works, particularly when you work in my world, where you’ve got to get approvals from everybody… and until it all comes together, there are certain things we can’t say. That’s frustrating, I know, for gamers, but they need to understand. There are competitive reasons I can’t make announcements on this. There’s cannibalization reasons that I don’t want to talk about what’s coming down the road, because I need to sell you that Coke Zero before I sell you Coke Zero 2.

So, it’s challenging. I know we do frustrate a lot of the folks, and you do see some commentary on the blog. But it’s not that we’re abandoning the PC as a platform for sports gaming. You might say we’re abandoning the old model of physical media because we believe the future is online and connected.

You’re going to see us take a lot of our learnings from what we’re doing with our games in Asia, where I’ll give you the game for free, or a certain level for free. And my hope is that you’re enjoying it that much that you’ll buy things and you’ll upsell. And then there’s no barrier to entry whatsoever.


I will challenge you on that point a little bit. You did bring out a PC disc version of FIFA last year.

Yeah. FIFA’s the one game we can sell on a global basis, and I don’t rely on ubiquitous broadband. So, FIFA sales in Eastern Europe, Russia, all around the world are a little easier for me, and it’s a little easier to justify - as we have in Vancouver - a PC team to develop it. When I look at the forecast, and the sales we get on PC FIFA globally, it’s justifiable as a resource expense to still do it on a physical disc.Actually, we did the same with NHL, because we had very strong interest for NHL on the PC in Eastern Europe and again in Russia and Scandinavia. Scandinavia’s got good broadband, but some of the Eastern European and Russian markets are still struggling a bit to get their infrastructure up and running.But once the infrastructure’s there, then I’d rather deliver it direct to their hard drives, give them a different business model than shipping on a disc.

Talking specifically, is the next PC version of Madden going to be downloadable?

You could say that when we’re ready to look at which franchises are going to be more applicable to be playing on the PC, we’ve said this repeatedly: it’s an online-based model. The actual structure of whether it’s browser-based, whether I give you a client, whether it’s subscription gaming, all of these things are yet to be determined.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby JaoSming on Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:40 pm

new article in the first post bumpage



I personally like the idea of getting Live next year digitally. No worrying if the stores are going to get their PC games on time and a easier way to reinstall without the discs.

However, this talk of some of the game for free, upselling, browser clients sucks....and, what will this do for community mods and customization?
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Patr1ck on Fri May 01, 2009 4:18 am

Browser client. It sounds like that online gaming service you posted a while back.

What sucks about all this is that I will never be able to "dust-off" these old downloaded games and play them once they stop supporting them.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Arcane on Fri May 01, 2009 7:36 am

hmmm I got mixed thoughts about this.

1) If game is broswer based well thats kind of weak this ain't an online MMO game.
2) I like the idea of no disc format but as long as its a build of whats being built for ps3/ps2 xbox 360 and xbox wii and so on.
3) This could be no real challenge to 2k in the pc market.
4) not everyone is an online player.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Andrew on Fri May 01, 2009 9:09 am

The promising aspect of this is that the PC might not be left out in the cold after all but as already mentioned, it might not be available in a desirable means (browser based) which as Jao said raises many questions as to our traditional approach of patching the PC version. And call me old fashioned, but I like having a disc; as Pdub said, there's a certain charm about being able to pull out old games and play them beyond the developer discontinuing support for them. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Angelo on Mon May 04, 2009 12:41 am

I would love to have it on disc rather than a browser based one since my internet sometimes lags and my antivirus keeps on popping some messages so i do hope it will still be a disc game not a browser one.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby aguifs on Mon May 04, 2009 7:09 am

I think EA won't release NBA live 10 for PC....


Madden and NHL won't have a PC version!



Let's pray for NBA 2k10 PC !!!
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Oakrhum on Mon May 04, 2009 9:26 am

EA's Fight Night Round 4 will have a PC version. The chances are still good.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Andrew on Mon May 04, 2009 9:31 am

I think there's cause for optimism, but I won't be completely confident about a PC release until such time as we gain confirmation.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Oakrhum on Mon May 04, 2009 9:58 am

Andrew wrote:I think there's cause for optimism, but I won't be completely confident about a PC release until such time as we gain confirmation.


Yeah, as Manny Pacquiao always say, "Only God knows what will happen".
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby JaoSming on Mon May 04, 2009 10:26 am

Oakrhum wrote:EA's Fight Night Round 4 will have a PC version. The chances are still good.


care to provide a link confirming that?
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Oakrhum on Mon May 04, 2009 11:10 am

JaoSming wrote:
Oakrhum wrote:EA's Fight Night Round 4 will have a PC version. The chances are still good.


care to provide a link confirming that?


I have to apologize first for my evidence is not that reliable. But I found this on youtube. The possibility that this is not true is higher.

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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby AMenace on Mon May 04, 2009 9:17 pm

This is a shit move. All EA are doing are trying to save costs on production, but think about all the people who have slow internet connections, or have a shit monthly limit, because if EA do make Live 10 for PC, and it is a 360 port, you would be looking at 7GB of downloading. I can barely manage that even though I have a 12gb limit. (N) (N)
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Bryan_C. on Mon May 04, 2009 10:53 pm

I have no interest in this " digital distribution" thing. In fact, I am even unaware how that thing works or how to do that.But in my opinion, I beleive that this type of procedure will NOT benefit anyone at all especially to those persons with slow connections.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Andrew on Tue May 05, 2009 12:07 am

To be fair, we don't have confirmation of a PC release for NBA Live '10 yet, in any form. For now it's something to keep in mind though.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Mark Nordstrom on Fri May 08, 2009 4:33 pm

This is all to stop people from downloading and never buying the game and we all know it and can read right through his BS excuses. EA is sick of people downloading there games for free on the PC and playing them online. It can be done for xbox and ps3 but its not as common and most people dont do it. I gotta find it but there was an article on MSN that did a survey and 38% of all EA Sports gamers that played on the PC never bought the games and just downloaded them for free.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Patr1ck on Sat May 09, 2009 2:41 am

Of course they do. The amount of people downloading them have increased with the rise in popularity of peer 2 peer file sharing programs and the global increase in internet speed.

It's not the only reason, though. It actually takes more resources to build a PC game because you have to support a varying degree of configurations. Anyone who has played games that have been ported from the xbox360 to the PC has probably experienced some problems with the games.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby AMenace on Sat May 09, 2009 3:04 pm

(N) (N) Now I can see the reason for this.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby tnt23 on Tue May 26, 2009 9:10 am

after playing live 09 once or twice on xbox... and finaly 2K9 on pc and xbox ...i wonder why anybody still waits for nba live 10??


oh then again ...maybe thats why :"A large amount of the responsibility for rebuilding that foundation has fallen on new lead gameplay designer Mike Wang, who came over from 2K Sports after working on the NBA 2K franchise from 2005-2007. Wang is a devoted basketball enthusiast and he's excited to bring his years of expertise to the NBA Live team and take on the challenge of restoring the franchise to its former glory. "
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Andrew on Tue May 26, 2009 10:09 am

tnt23 wrote:after playing live 09 once or twice on xbox... and finaly 2K9 on pc and xbox ...i wonder why anybody still waits for nba live 10??


Perhaps because some of us enjoyed NBA Live 09 more than you apparently did? It wasn't without its faults but for my money it was the best of the Xbox 360 releases to date. There are some improvements and additions here and there that definitely need to be made but if that happens I think NBA Live '10 has a shot at being a quality game. We may have to agree to disagree on that one but I'd say I'm not the only one around these parts who has those hopes and opinions. This is an NBA Live fansite after all, which I guess is the broader answer to your question.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby tnt23 on Tue May 26, 2009 11:41 am

hey andrew;) i understand the hope part...as much as i loved 08 despite all the flaws, somehow i really didnt feel the next gen version of live...graphics felt cartoonish...and as far as gameplay...once u touch 2K9...its hard to go back imo
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Andrew on Tue May 26, 2009 11:45 am

I've still yet to be swayed by the gameplay of any NBA 2K game, which is not to say that it's terrible by any stretch but not better to the point where I want to make the jump myself. I still don't understand how NBA Live has "cartoonish" graphics either, I don't see too many glaring flaws with the graphics in general of either Live or 2K.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Arcane on Tue May 26, 2009 11:53 am

tnt23 wrote:after playing live 09 once or twice on xbox... and finaly 2K9 on pc and xbox ...i wonder why anybody still waits for nba live 10??


Live 09 was fantastic despite some minor issues and lack of PC Support. There was a huge amount of people fustrated with 2K9 who turned to Live 09 and found it offered more and felt the game played better. I've played 2k9 on PS3 a few times and thought the game was too easy and lacked any form of a challenge apart from figuring out the controls.
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Re: Future EA Sports PC games going Digital Distribution Only

Postby Oakrhum on Tue May 26, 2009 1:15 pm

Picking 2K over Live is similar to liking LeBron over Kobe.
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