Electronic Arts Says Traditional Retailers Are Here to Stay

The entire video game industry seems to be more interested than ever in digital distribution, social experience and streaming but one of the leaders of publisher Electronic Arts has said that he does not foresee the traditional video game retail store disappearing in the near future.

Speaking to both investors and analysts at the Communacopia Conference that was organized by Goldman Sachs, Eric Brown, who is the Chief Financial Officer of Electronic Arts, has stated, “You need a retail partner to stock the consoles. I don't see all consoles being ordered via mail. There's going to be people that go in and want to see the display, the form factors, etc.”

The CFO says that Electronic Arts has had a lot of success with video games that have no physical retail component, like its Facebook titles, but that it will continue to create and distribute game disks for its biggest franchises.

Brown also talked about the number of games that his company is launching in retail packages, saying that for the 2009 fiscal year the number stood at 67 titles and then it came down to 54 and, finally, for this fiscal year, just 22.

The executive added, “We feel that we're in a pretty good spot. It's not to say that 22 is exactly the right number of titles, because that number could flex up or down a little bit, but it seems to be about in the right area at this point in time.”

It seems that despite its long term commitment to retail releases Electronic Arts is equally interested in making sure that its digital revenue keeps growing and it looking to get eight of its biggest ten titles to create 50 million dollars from digital sources next year, levels that only FIFA and Battlefield have managed to reach.