Electronic Arts Criticizes NPD Data for Ignoring Digital Sales

Video game publisher Electronic Arts has said that the monthly figures which the NPD Group publishes for the video game market in the United States distort reality and should not be seen as a benchmark of how well a company is doing in the market.

Electronic Arts probably chose to talk about the NPD data in a critical way because of the impact that they tend to have on investors’ confidence.

Tiffany Steckler, who is in charge of corporate communications for Electronic Arts, has stated, “Using NPD data for video game sales is like measuring music sales and ignoring something called iTunes. We see NPD's data as a misrepresentation of the entire industry.”

Electronic Arts is one of the video game publishers that are extremely involved in the market for digitally distributed content, which is not tracked in any way by the NPD Group, with the company saying that it is getting 30 percent of its revenue from that source.

EA also says that it expected the market to grow significantly in the coming years, with it as one of its biggest players, something that should be reflected in monthly sales data.

Anita Frazier, who is an analyst for the NPD Group, has answered by saying, “we are best known for and that is our monthly reporting of new physical sales occurring at retail,” with the company also working to track total industry revenue in a better way in the near future.

The free-to-play model and social-powered video games are becoming more and more important in the gaming space, with developers and publishers aiming to get a big audience for their titles and then extracting revenue from a smaller proportion of players who are willing to pay for more content.

Electronic Arts made headlines when it bought Playfish, the second biggest company in the social gaming space.