AUG. 2, 2011 • Starting with Madden NFL 12, Electronic Arts is making available the EA Sports Season Ticket for $24.99 a year. The biggest attraction is that it provides PSN and Xbox Live users the opportunity to play upcoming EA Sports titles three days prior to the official retail lease via a digital download of the full game. On the launch date, the trial download deactivates, but if gamers purchase the title, stats and achievements will automatically transfer. In related news, EA Sports head Peter Moore was promoted to chief operating officer to replace John Schappert, who recently left EA to join Zynga. Similarly, Jeff Karp, executive vice president of EA’s Play label announced he was leaving for Zynga.
Impact: On the console side of the business, EA Sports had lead the way with the overall company’s embracing of digital revenue, particularly through the FIFA 11 Live Season DLC. On a July EA earnings call, Peter Moore revealed that Live Season had raised the overall FIFA 11 ARPU to $51 and only 40% of users who bought the game bought the DLC. By rough calculation, we estimate worldwide FIFA 11 DLC at over $50 million, clearly a non-trivial contribution to EA’s overall digital revenue ambitions. We view the EA Sports Season ticket as an experimental digital offering that would likely appeal to only a niche set of console gamers who absolutely have to get their games first, instead of attracting a wider set of sports gamers as EA desires. If it gains traction it would be another positive step at growing digital revenue. If it goes nowhere it will be a good learning experience for EA with low downside. Furthermore, Peter Moore’s promotion is another sign of how serious EA is about digital revenues.
