Speaking today at the Morgan Stanley Technology conference in San Francisco, EA Sports boss Peter Moore has spoken of Madden's digital future. Madden fans, and sports game fans in general, may not be amused.
"I think we need to move much quicker, in particular with Madden, through a digital world," he said. "You're going to see more announcements there how we digitize our Madden consumer."
Those announcements don't seem to include a move away from selling annual, disc-based games, however. "It keeps the disc in the drive longer, it stalls trading the game in, it allows me to be able to take further advantage of that consumer over a longer period of time," Moore said in regards to digital content. "Even if we do get second sales, we see that as an opportunity to drive digital margins."
"Sports games, because their seasonality runs out, are always something tempting to trade in. We've got to be able to build business models around allowing that consumer to trade it in and then monetize them".
And when can we expect this glorious digital future? "We're certainly going to do a lot of that this year".
Great.
You know, when I was young, I once dreamed of a day where you'd simply subscribe to Madden or FIFA. Get your rosters, uniforms, statistics and stadiums constantly updated via digital delivery. Have the engine substantially improved more often than once every 4-6 years. All for around the same price a single $50 game would cost.
What a fool I was.