For all you hardcore FIFA fans out there, here’s good news: EA Sport’s latest football game installment, FIFA 17, has officially released and is, as you read this, available on Amazon.in. FIFA 17 pre-ordering began around 2 months ago exclusively on Amazon.in. And just as was reported for FIFA 16 last year, the response for Fifa’s latest has been overwhelming.
This exclusivity is the result of a partnership which took place last year between EA and Amazon India. A deal during which, EA took a massive leap by isolating themselves and their games to only one distributer in the country — where their games are spectacular hits(namely FIFA, Need for Speed and Battlefield).
As was stated by an ex-employee of Milestone Interactive(EA’s former distributor before the Amazon deal),
You see, EA is a company that loves compliance, everything must be present and accounted for, all dues must be cleared. The tolerance for non-compliance is very low.
At its highest point in 2013, he states, EA’s annual revenue in the country was around $2.2 million across all boxed, physical games at the time. These formats included the likes of PS3, PSP, PC, and Xbox 360. That sounds decent, except for the fact that Milestone was playing fast and loose on a number of counts.
Most of the FIFA 17 deliveries have already begun to each and every customer who had placed pre orders for the game with Amazon. Reportedly, 90% of the customers will have their orders delivered on time.
Amazon India spokesperson said:
We are very much the preferred partner for EA in India and have grown the pre-order market for FIFA by more than 60%. With two more big new releases lined up in October, Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 we will only go from strength to strength.
So what’re you waiting for? Pull out those phones and flip open those laptops and order it before it goes out of stock. And count on the fact that it will be!
