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Again responding to all of the complaints about the Booster Pack downloads. This is a glimpse into the future of software distribution. It is the most efficient and fastest way to get software to you. Is it ready for everyone? No, not everyone has the bandwidth, but anyone playing BF2 should. Does everyone have a credit card? No, but you probably can figure out a way to make it work (Paypal, pre-paid credit cards, etc). If you have a EA downloader account, you can always retrieve/re-download the software that you have purchased. It's hard to believe people with expensive rigs, stupid number of hours of time online, all sorts of other downloaded content are so resistent to buying and receiving a $10 piece of software online.
Think about the normal distribution costs. The costs to deliver boxed software are not insignificant:
- Design, edit, finalize and produce packaging
- Printing documentation
- CD art and reproduction costs
- Shipping costs to distributors, who in turn have to ship to their retail partners
- Potential stocking fees
- In store marketing (signs, posters, end caps etc)
- Margin to each layer of the distribution channel
This doesn't even include the development costs.
By the time it ends up in the store, it has been marked up 1-2 times. At the end of the day, noone is going to make much money at $10 per box. More important it also isn't going to make it to your hard drive as fast.
The alternative is they add more content to justify charging enough money to make an acceptable profit. More content means more complexity and potentially more problems. It means a longer wait for content and a higher price to you.
EA have said the SF download helped convince them that online sales and distribution was a viable alternative to exisiting traditional methods for add-on content. Think about it, they have eliminated or reduced packaging, distribution and marketing costs. They can charge $10 and still make a reasonable profit.
Electronic distribution's time is coming. It costs less, gets to you faster and allows them to make money. Everybody wins?
Think about the normal distribution costs. The costs to deliver boxed software are not insignificant:
- Design, edit, finalize and produce packaging
- Printing documentation
- CD art and reproduction costs
- Shipping costs to distributors, who in turn have to ship to their retail partners
- Potential stocking fees
- In store marketing (signs, posters, end caps etc)
- Margin to each layer of the distribution channel
This doesn't even include the development costs.
By the time it ends up in the store, it has been marked up 1-2 times. At the end of the day, noone is going to make much money at $10 per box. More important it also isn't going to make it to your hard drive as fast.
The alternative is they add more content to justify charging enough money to make an acceptable profit. More content means more complexity and potentially more problems. It means a longer wait for content and a higher price to you.
EA have said the SF download helped convince them that online sales and distribution was a viable alternative to exisiting traditional methods for add-on content. Think about it, they have eliminated or reduced packaging, distribution and marketing costs. They can charge $10 and still make a reasonable profit.
Electronic distribution's time is coming. It costs less, gets to you faster and allows them to make money. Everybody wins?
and it might give them ideas to never package games again
.they will get fat and we will have to download every thing
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