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The games industry in India is still pretty small, and has mostly been developed not by the efforts of any of the big companies, but rather by small retailers and their loyalist fans. That's why it was a surprise to many when Electronic Arts (EA) announced an exclusive retail partnership with Amazon. After all, EA publishes some of the most successful franchises in India - FIFA, Need for Speed, and Battlefield - and the wide retail reach has at least partially been responsible for its success in the country.
You could find EA's games at a variety of stores, from small hole in the wall shops selling to dedicated game stores, to large format retailers such as Croma and Landmark which sell to parents of gamers. With EA going online only, a lot of customers who're used to walking down to their favourite store and just picking up the games without any waiting are not happy.
So why is EA taking such a big step? While the company did not respond to Gadgets 360's requests for comment, people in the know tell us that this is a move that has been building up for a while.
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"You see, EA is a company that loves compliance," says an ex-employee of Milestone Interactive, EA's distributor before the Amazon deal. "Everything must be present and accounted for, all dues must be cleared. The tolerance for non-compliance is very low."
"They [EA] weren't too worried about how many games sold and what quantity, just as long as they were paid. And when they stopped receiving payments, things took a turn," our source says.
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Facing issues with Milestone, EA was understandably on the lookout for a new distributor. Sources tell Gadgets 360 that amongst those considered the top choices included Ingram Micro (which also distributes games for EA in Singapore) and Sunder Electronics - a sub-distributor for both Sony and Microsoft.
However, EA has decided to get out of offline retail in India altogether, and is now only available via Amazon. The thinking, sources say, is that Amazon is a well-known entity which will also avoid any irregularities with payments.
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