The transition in the gaming world from purchasing things at your local GameStop to buying them via the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store has been rather rapid. Sure, Live’s Marketplace has been around for awhile now, but full-game downloads have become much more common. It isn’t just the PS Store or Marketplace, either; the digital market is undeniably growing across the board.

EA, who has many massively popular retail games, also has a variety of free-to-play titles. Such titles include FIFA Ultimate Team and the upcoming Battlefield Play4Free. EA CEO John Riccitiello is convinced that the digital side of the industry will generate more revenue than the retail side in 2011. “At the end of [2011], the digital business is bigger than the packaged goods business, full stop. No questions in my mind,” Riccitiello said in an interview with Industry Gamers. “Then, you know, I think that we’ll find ways to even sell our packaged goods content in chunks and in pieces and subscriptions and micro-transactions.”

According to Riccitiello, gamers who play their free services are actually the ones spending the most money. “We have people who are giving us $5,000 in a month to play FIFA Ultimate Team. And it’s free. Dirty little secret.”

It wasn’t too long ago when publishers would release a title and call it a day. Now, that’s hardly the case. A majority of games released now have add-on content, allowing players to get new maps, weapons, and so on and so forth. So long as gamers continue to fork out money for add-ons on their favorite titles, you can expect that the digital side of the industry will only continue to grow.

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