EA CEO: Piracy Can Help Us Sell More Games
What's that? Piracy could actually help EA's bottom line? It must be magic!
Piracy is often cited as the largest program for any video game developer and publisher, particularly if it’s a PC game. EA’s recent release of the Sims 3 actually surpassed last year’s Spore for being the most-pirated game.
According to IndustryGamers, the Sims 3 was illegally downloaded around 200,000 times prior to the game’s release – but surprisingly, EA CEO John Riccitiello doesn’t mind one bit.
In fact, when reading in between the lines, it seems like piracy could help boost EA’s business in the long term. Those who downloaded the Sims 3 only have access to one city out of the two. The second city is only delivered via the Internet after product registration, along with other content and access to the community. Essentially, those who pirate Sims 3 only get a portion of the full game – which sounds a bit like the shareware days gone by.
“You identified our secret marketing campaign!” Riccitiello said facetiously to IndustryGamers. “It was only concentrated on Poland and China, but I think of it as not being that different than a demo.”
Rather than selling a simple product-on-a-disc, EA believes that the real money (and protection from piracy) is in selling the services that come after the gamer pops the disc into the tray.
Riccitiello continued, “I'm a longtime believer that we're moving to selling services that are disc-enabled as opposed to packages that have bolt-ons. ... If you see what we're doing with Madden Online, FIFA Ultimate Team or Sims 3, and Dragon Age is probably a 100-hour game by itself, but what comes post-release [for these games] is bigger still. So the point I'm making is, yes I think that's the answer [to piracy].”
Amusingly, Riccitiello made a comment in support of piracy of EA’s games. “By the way, if there are any pirates you're writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes... if they would just pirate lots of it I'd love them. [laughs] Because what's in the middle of the game is an opportunity to buy stuff.”
The EA CEO does back off a bit, but reiterates once more than it’s not about selling the disc, but rather selling a service.
“While we don't want to see people pirate Warhammer Online, if they're going to give us a year's subscription it's not exactly a total loss,” Riccitiello added.
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- sales
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Yes! This is good news. At last the game industry is moving towards a future where game piracy is redundant; and we get most of the content, for free still.
Why are they encouraging piracy of Battlefield Heroes? Isn't it free to play?
One more thing, I feel sorry for anyone out in the sticks where the internet is poor at best. Especially since gaming might be much cheaper and more convenient than the trek to a town to go to the pub, go for a meal, meet friends etc.
In my mind this still isn't the solution, sorry EA.
Yeh I thought battlefield heroes was free too.
There are loads of games I want to buy at full price and play. If you take out the DRM I'll go off to the shop and buy them. I'll also go and update my rig to play them.
But if you are going to sell me 1/2 a game and then tell me to down load the rest, thats a form DRM right there.
If I pay 100% I want to have 100% of the game.
Backtrack EA
Supporting EA = bad karma.
Capitalism is a form of democracy if you're selective with where you spend your money. If you feel these decisions on DRM-like measures aren't fair/right/just/etc are more than an inconvenience and actually need something done about it, stand by your morals and don't pay money for the game.
I've bought many a game from steam and never played them because i'm happy to support their devs. Likewise i'm sure others have downloaded games they would like to pay for (unrestricted access to multiplayer, DLC, etc) but haven't because they don't want to support this kind of cynical heavy-handed practice.
Don't assume this is the way things have to be - google Stardock for a refreshing and commercially viable alternative!