Train2Game students have seen the games industry change a lot over the last few years, in part thanks to the rise of mobile and cloud based gaming, and according to EA COO Peter Moore, games companies will need to keep changing methods of operating in order to survive.

“Transitions are hard because revenue slows down and costs speed up. You’re getting ready to develop for new platforms, whether they be hardware platforms or software, and it’s getting to be even more complex now,” Moore told Industry Gamers in the latest of their ‘Better know’ interviews.

Interestingly, as previously reported by the Train2Game blog, Moore has previously stated that Nintendo’s Wii U is not a transitional platform.

But he believes that developers and publishers to stick to traditional business models will find that they eventually disappear.

The companies that have prepared themselves and have diversified their offerings to chase the consumer wherever they want to play games are the companies that will succeed and thrive and flourish. Companies that continue to rely on the old model as the model changes before our eyes, unless they change their ways and invest in the future those companies eventually will die off. No two ways about it,” said Moore.

And the EA COO believes that, while physical copies of games remain strong for now, eventually we’ll be in an entirely digital industry.

“The packaged goods business, while still flourishing and strong, eventually – as we’ve seen in music and movies – will go to the cloud. It will go digital and we’ll be delivering games from the cloud and delivering games directly to hard drives and we’re still going to sell a lot of discs for the foreseeable future.”

But eventually, physical media will diminish as the core part of how gamers get their content. And we’re ready for that, but we’re also still ready to be the number one packaged goods publisher in the world.” said Moore.

“If you want to be a publisher that’s still going to be viable for the consumer 3-4 years from now, you better be ready to deliver your content anytime, anywhere and to everyone.” he added

Peter Moore has previously questioned the role of handheld consoles thanks to the rise of smartphone gaming.

So Train2Game, what do you make of Moore’s comments? Will the future be digital?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

(Source: Industry Gamers)