EA CEO wants to sell DLC to console game pirates

Kotaku's Stephen Totilo recently spoke with EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, who had a rather refreshing view of the rampant problem of video game piracy. Even though he made sure to clarify that he and his company look down on the act of piracy, Riccitiello noted that even if some gamers don't pay for the games they're playing, all of them are potential customers for DLC. "There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace." Riccitiello said.

Citing the music industry's reaction to piracy as errant, Riccitiello hopes that EA can use a variety of methods to turn pirates into purchasers. Besides offering up unlockables that come with new discs and land on console marketplaces for small fees, Riccitiello also hopes that adding online value via game-based communities will engender more new game purchases.

While the interview never breaches the topic, a parallel can be traced between profiting from pirated and used copies of a game. EA sees no profit from either method of procurement, but by creating content like The Saboteur's nudity add-on --which came free with new copies and is available on DLC services for $5--EA will encourage gamers to at least purchase said DLC, and possibly consider the purchase of a new copy to skip the hassle of paying for a product over the console.

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Kotaku's Stephen Totilo recently spoke with EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, who had a rather refreshing view of the rampant problem of video game piracy. Even though he made sure to clarify that he and his company look down on the act of piracy, Riccitiello noted that even if some gamers don't pay for the games they're playing, all of them are potential customers for DLC. "There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace." Riccitiello said.

Citing the music industry's reaction to piracy as errant, Riccitiello hopes that EA can use a variety of methods to turn pirates into purchasers. Besides offering up unlockables that come with new discs and land on console marketplaces for small fees, Riccitiello also hopes that adding online value via game-based communities will engender more new game purchases.

While the interview never breaches the topic, a parallel can be traced between profiting from pirated and used copies of a game. EA sees no profit from either method of procurement, but by creating content like The Saboteur's nudity add-on --which came free with new copies and is available on DLC services for $5--EA will encourage gamers to at least purchase said DLC, and possibly consider the purchase of a new copy to skip the hassle of paying for a product over the console.

Riccitiello summarized the silver lining very succinctly, stating "They can steal the disc, but they can't steal the DLC." You can read more about his thoughts on monetizing DLC here on Kotaku. Additionally, the topic of EA's new business avenues was discussed thoroughly on the latest episode of GamePro News, which you can check out here.

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