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This week at the London Games Conference the CEO of EA warned of an uncertain future for games. Companies such as Blizzard are already making expansion packs to their most successful games directly available from their website. EA are offering a version of their latest Battlefield series for free at the moment, and are worried that this will become the norm rather than the exception.
Games have largely avoided the intrusion into profits that sites like 'The Pirate Bay' have caused the music industry because of the hardware of the console system (PC Games are another matter). If situations like a quarter of the people who downloaded Radiohead’s 'In Rainbows' are anything to go by, when people start getting something for free they are more than loath to start paying for it again. Especially given the high price of games, which can charge over £50 for one mediocre repetitive First Person Shooter, erosion of profits looks much more a certainty than a possibility.
Another possible reason why EA were so unhappy at the conference: Zynga, the company behind many Facebook games including the bafflingly-popular Farmville, is valued higher than EA. Farmville! That clunking sound you hear is my head banging against this laptop. However, Facebook itself is more temperamental than Dr. Jekyll in a hall of mirrors, arbitrarily demanding profits one minute, then love the next. However, games developers see online platforms for gaming such as Facebook vital in the next three years. As illegal downloads and emulations continue to rise, ensuring a continuously loyal fanbase is paramount to retaining sales, and Facebook is one of the key ways developers look to make this happen. A Brave New World ahead!
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