EA Sports foresees end of days for shops
"There will come a day," says VP Wilson.
EA Sports vice president Andrew Wilson believes that the days of buying video games in shops are numbered.
"There will come a day where I think that people will stop going into Game and GameStop. And I use those purely as examples of retail," Wilson explained to Eurogamer this afternoon.
"It's important for retailers and us to understand what the consumer wants in the future."
What consumers want could be streaming games or downloading games or "any number of things", added Wilson. Whatever it may be, the important point will be that you chose it.
"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," said Wilson.
"And when you do that it makes us all just a little bit nervous because as humans, in our DNA, we like to have control. Giving control to anyone - our parents, our teachers, our bosses, our kids - is scary. It's going to be a fun time."
EA took a giant step towards a digital future last week by buying casual gaming giant PopCap Games in a deal worth over $1 billion. Before then, EA snapped up big social gaming studio PlayFish and mobile publisher Chillingo.
On PC, EA has embarked on the second generation of its digital distribution shop, now called Origin.
On console, EA blazed the Online Pass trail and charged second-hand users to play various EA games online or to enable additional content. All EA games continue to be supported with a raft of post release content.