There will be no more physical copies of Electronic Arts games, at least not if you are unlucky enough to live in South Africa. The company has precisely notified all retailers in the region that they will immediately cease physical distribution and instead completely switch to digital. No direct reason has been given and the message sent out through Electronic Arts’ former distributor Prima was as follows:
“After 9 years of serving the South African gaming community, Electronic Arts have decided to terminate direct distribution in the country.”
The decision comes in the wake of skyrocketing prices for physical copies of video games in the region in recent months, not just specifically from Electronic Arts, but then also from Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and all other publishers. This while digital prices remained normal.
Incredibly sad news for players in the country who still want to buy their games in store of course but also an almost inevitable step towards the increasingly digital future. So the only question is, how long will the physical game sales remain in the rest of the world’s regions?
For example, it was reported via ERA (The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association) as recently as January that 89.5% of all game sales in the UK were digital. In other words, every tenth game sale of a physical copy alone. A trend that appears to be the same around the world according to Ars Technica.
What are your thoughts on this? How long do you think it will be possible to find physical copies of games in stores in town?
