In a recent conference call, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello took some time to talk about the company’s digital distribution service, Origin.
According to Riccitiello, EA’s revenues from Origin sales are relatively similar to its biggest competitor, Steam.
"We’re seeing good uptake," he explained. "By way of comparison, when we’ve had good success on Steam and then the same title on Origin, we see similar revenues to a service that is much more mature and of higher scale at this point in time."
Despite this early success, the EA boss stressed that Origin’s margins in the near future are going to be closely monitored.
"I think the most important issue to us is watching how this thing scales," he said. "Obviously margins are going to be very, very important, but it’s going to be how many we have, how frequently they use it, and how much they spend when they use it."
Riccitiello also discussed how third-party developers and publishers are expressing interest in the platform.
"We’ve had a lot of inbound inquiry about getting on," he said. "I think forward-looking publishers really want their content on any and every platform possible. One more sale is better than not."
Lastly, Riccitiello claimed that EA wants Origin "to be HBO meets Netflix for gaming." That’s an interesting analogy that will likely become clearer in the very near future.
