Good article on how the game #music industry is functioning vis a vis the music industry
GamesIndustry recently published a rather interesting interview with Peter Moore as he attempts to explain EA’s often-controversial ##business< /a> practices and the public’s reaction to them. The article was reposted with a headline that said EA “blames their own customers” for failing to see the changing winds, though I think the issue is a bit more nuanced than that.
I don’t think Moore gets it quite right though, particularly when he starts saying how video games need to avoid the fate of the music industry.
“We as an industry have to embrace change,” he explains. “We can’t be music. We cannot be music.
“Because music said, ‘Screw you. You’re going to buy a CD for $16.99, and we’re going to put 14 songs on there, two of which you care about, but you’re going to buy our CD.’ Then Shawn Fanning writes a line of code or two, Napster happens, and the consumers take control. Creating music to sell is no longer a profitable concern. The business model has changed to concerts, corporate concerts, merchandise, things of that nature. Actually selling music is not a way of making money any more, except for a core group.”
The point here is that the model changed for music, and if EA (and the industry as a whole) doesn’t think of new revenue streams quickly, they’ll share the same fate of the product they sell not making them much money. Hence the rise of free-to-play games stuffed with microtransactions, something that’s proved so popular in the mobile sector. He says “core” gamers dislike this practice, but they’re missing the bigger picture.
Curated from www.forbes.com
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