Peter Moore: Well look back and laugh at boxed product

Peter Moore had predicted the death of boxed product – and promised EA will be at the forefront of the digital revolution.

In an interview with The Guardian, he said EA will take a different direction that iTunes, which he called a rip-off”.

We’ve gone from connected consumers being the minority to connected consumers being the majority,” he said.

We need to look three years into the future and say it’s going to be a completely different business, because of broadband connections.

I am not going to be at the helm of a company that ends up like the music business that refused to stop trying to sell you CDs for 15 because it was a hugely profitable model. And the music consumer says, ‘you know, I don’t want to pay 15 for 12 tracks of which I want two, I don’t want shiny discs anymore’.

And so what did the industry do? It started suing its consumers for illegal downloads and, you know, Steve Jobs comes to the rescue to figure out a way to charge you 99 cents or whatever you’re paying in the UK… You’re being ripped off.

Moore said that EA would not go the same route as Apple, instead giving the consumer whatever they want”.

He commented:

In the future hard drives are going to be bigger, broadband is going to be faster and we’re going to look back and laugh at the fact that we used to drive to the store to buy a piece of plastic with data on it. That business model isn’t going to exist – I don’t know whether it’s going to be five years from now or ten years, but it’s not going to be around anymore.”

Moore concluded:

I think we’re doing it well, much better than the music business did – we’re not fighting it, there’s an issue with retail – retail are going to have to figure out where they play in the value chain for the consumer. But we have the ability to have direct relationships with our consumers because we can provide them with value everyday – particularly with sports.”