EA Still Believes in Physical Game Discs

After saying that digital distribution is set to overtake physical one during 2011, EA CEO John Riccitiello now highlights that even so, physical game discs aren't going away anytime soon due to their reliability.

Digital distribution is increasing by leaps and bounds, not only through the advent of online game stores like Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Apple's App Store, but also through the launch of streaming services like OnLive.

Still, that's not a reason to completely forget about making physical game discs or stopping the retail effort altogether, at least according to EA boss John Riccitiello.

While speaking with IndustryGamers, the executive went into great detail about the benefits of physical media over streaming or one-time downloads.

"Do I believe longer term that the disc will go away? Not any time soon," he said. "I think the disc can actually be a great starting point for a digital business, like an MMO, World of Warcraft, for instance."

"Pushing that off to the side for a minute, we make services, we don’t make products, and I think the challenge I would have in answering the question the way you framed it is I don’t think people want a streaming game service. I think they want their games to work. At times, that will be delivered best with streaming. At times, you should just download the game."

Riccietiello basically explained that consumers weren't yet at a point where they could understand the technology behind their games, so if something didn't work, they'd take their business elsewhere.

"The point, though, that I’m making is that sometimes you’re not going to play because your internet connection is down and sometimes delivering a game by streaming is a really inefficient way to do it. I think the consumer, at least in my view, doesn’t care what the technology is, what lives behind the veiled curtain; they just want it to work."

Still, even so, EA is set to continue pushing into the digital domain, alongside other companies like GameStop, which wants to expand its physical retail business with digital content.