Bye bye disks! EA only sells games digitally in Germany

Video game media is slowly but surely becoming less popular. Just recently, the digital storefront Steam had over 30 million active users at the same time, and Sony, for example, already offers a version with their PlayStation 5 that does not have its own drive. The income from downloads and any in-game purchases is constantly growing at the same time. Among other things, this has a fairly large impact on the branches of game publishers in Germany.

Electronic Arts withdraws from the business with data carriers

As games economy reports, German branches usually do not receive any proceeds from digital sales. The turnover of the Munich-based Take-Two Interactive GmbH probably recently fell from 24 million euros to 14 million euros, although titles like Grand Theft Auto are still quite profitable. At Activision Blizzard, this change meant that one location was completely dissolved.

Publisher EA is currently in a similar situation. The company generates revenue primarily from digital sales such as FIFA Ultimate Team trading card packs and other in-game purchases from titles such as Apex Legends. According to the latest annual report from EA Germany, the publisher is therefore planning an “economic restructuring”, according to which Electronic Arts will “no longer achieve sales with packaged goods” in German-speaking countries.

“The ongoing shift from physical goods to digital download continues to negatively impact revenue. Digital download revenue is not processed through EA but through an affiliate.”

Electronic Arts has given up selling data carriers, at least in this country. However, it is not yet known what the exact consequences of this step will be for the EA locations. All we know is that the German Electronic Arts headquarters in Cologne should definitely be retained, partly because many EA titles are localized there.