With each passing year, we are seeing digital game purchases take over the industry, with physical media becoming slowly but surely a thing of the past. Speeding up this process is EA, who has now announced that the publisher will no longer be releasing games in German speaking countries in a physical capacity – going all-digital.

As reported by German website ‘gameswirtschaft’ – and translated by ResetEra user ‘Xando’ – EA will no longer be selling games physically in Germany and other German-speaking countries. As part of EA Deutschland's latest annual report, the publisher claimed:

“The ongoing shift from physical goods to digital downloads continues to have a negative impact on sales development. Revenue from digital downloads is not processed through EA, but through an affiliate.”

This has necessitated an “economic restructuring” which includes Local customer contracts being terminated, meaning that EA will “no longer generate sales with packaged goods” in German-speaking markets.

Fortunately, the German EA headquarters will remain, meaning that future titles will continue to receive German translations – they just won’t be sold digitally.

As mentioned, with each year, more and more games are being sold digitally, and so the transition to an all-digital future is more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’. Despite this, hopefully physical media does stick around in the long-term in some form or another.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of this move by EA? Was it an inevitability? What publisher do you think will follow suit next? Let us know down below.

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