EA stops all physical game sales in South Africa

There will be no more physical copies of Electronic Arts games, at least if you’re not lucky enough to live in South Africa. Exact company more dangerous All retailers in the region will immediately stop physical distribution and instead switch completely to digital. No direct reason was given and the message sent through Electronic Arts Prima’s former distributor was as follows:

After 9 years of serving the South African gaming community, Electronic Arts has decided to end direct distribution in the country.

The decision comes on the heels of a huge rise in the prices of physical copies of video games in the region in recent months, not only from Electronic Arts specifically, but also from Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and all other publishers. This while digital prices remained normal.

Incredibly sad news for gamers in the country who still want to buy their games in the store of course but also an inevitable step into the increasingly digital future. So the only question is, how long will physical game sales last in the rest of the world?

For example, it was reported via ERA (Digital Entertainment and Retail Association) as recently as January that 89.5% of all game sales in the UK were digital. In other words, every decimal sale of a game is for a physical copy only. A trend that seems to be the same all over the world according to Ars Technica.

What are your thoughts on this? How long do you think it will be possible to find physical copies of games in city stores?