EA: Gaming Business Going Digital, Apple Biggest Retail Partner in Q1

EA had a very peculiar first quarter, according to the recently release financial results. Although the massive publisher is best known for releasing big, AAA titles like Battlefield and Madden, the majority of the company’s revenue over the past few months has been through digital sales. Why was there such a significant shift from boxed copies to digital distribution? Other than a lack of “blockbuster console titles,” EA executive Frank Gibeau points to the new direction of the gaming industry.

“About 76 percent of our revenue this quarter was digital, not disc-based. We’re off to the races,” Gibeau recently told GamesBeat. “The digital capabilities of the next-generation consoles are extremely powerful. The business is going digital. Mobile. Asia. A significant part of the business is in Asia. Does that mean retail is going away? No. But it’s not an experiment. It’s what we’re all about.”

Instead of the usual suspects like GameStop and Best Buy acting as EA’s biggest retailer partners, it was Apple that provided the most financial support early this year.

“The quarter was a bit of an anomaly because we didn’t put out any blockbuster console titles, but our biggest retail partner, measured by dollar volume, in Q1 was not Best Buy or GameStop. It was Apple,” Gibeau continued. “That’s never happened before. John Riccitiello started us on this course, but we embrace it, we support it, and we’re going to take it to new heights.”

With Battlefield 4 and other major titles coming from EA during the holidays, don’t expect this to be the trend each and every quarter. However, digital distribution is here to stay. These numbers prove that.