EA: 40% of all game sales now digital

http://www.vg247.com/2011/03/10/ea-40-of-all-game-sales-now-digital/

"EA has claimed that as much as 40 percent of all game sales are now taking place digitally, and that stats services such as NPD are becoming irrelevant"

Wow, all of this constant talk from EA about digital distribution, how important it is and blablabla and yet they still are not on many DD services and there is still no sight of them joining GoG....

I don't pay out the ass for Steam, most games I get are under $10. Steam has some of the best sales out there.

Still, I wish they would up the quality control.

Every publisher nowadays is trying to set up it's own store. But having to create an account for every publisher is kind of annoying. That's why purchasing trough GoG, impulse and Steam is more appealing. Then at least your games are centralized.

EA and Microsoft are also quite good at forcing people to create a handful of accounts which offer no usability at all. On the EA website I can see that I own the retail version of CNC4 for example, but the account serves no purpose and you cannot download anything. It's kind of silly. Blizzard at least tries to give it's account some functions.

But more on-topic: It's good to see digital distribution is popularizing so fast. The industry is filling up the hole in the markets, where formerly only pirates dared to tread. Games are becoming more and more accessible. It's good to see.

Yes, yes, it's just terrible that Steam has no offline mode, and it's such a good thing that people keep spreading the word that no such feature exists. Thank you so much.

Try registering your C&C4 CD key with the EA Download Manager.

Well Ubi loves their DRM and having peoples connected and yet some of their games are available on GoG.

Next time put your Steam in Offline mode, you can play most games perfectly fine without internet.

I feel so stupid now. Just tried it. Thanks. ;)

I commend EA for updating the manager often, but I wish they gave checkbox options whether I wanted a shortcut placed on the desktop or having the download manager added to the list of startup applications everytime a new version needs to be installed. I am pleased that they made the manager less cluttered though by combining the DLC entries with the corresponding game.

Maybe as EA tests the digital waters, they will come around and see that growing communities like GOG would be an asset to their vast catalog of older games that are vaporware for the most part - some sales are better than no sales and they don't get anything from Ebay auctions or piracy...

There was a time when bargain bins were full of games for 5 dollars and under. I don't consider 10 dollar "deals" to be that much of a bargain on old PC games. In years gone by only the best PC games maintained an even 20 dollar price point after 18 months. Umm, offline mode can randomly demand you connect, ask anyone on a military base and they'll tell you Steam's offline mode is balls.

Well one of the best things about DD is that many Publishers and developers right now are realising that there is indeed a market for older titles, if a game is good it matters little how old it is - It's still a good game that people want to play

It's much better to have your game available legally and offer them to the public while making some money instead of forgetting about them and having them torrented/pirated and making no money at all

Let's just hope that EA will actually realise this soon but you know them and how they are...sigh...

That's a very bad news, from my standpoint....

Hell, Steam Online Mode behaves itself when the connection drops.