EA CEO John Riccitiello is stepping down

[Ack]

John Riccitiello is resigning over at EA after five years of low profits, falling short of income estimates, and the bungling of multiple products.

http://kotaku.com/5991181/ea-ceo-john-r ... steps-down

From a corporate standpoint, I understand his being cut. I have mixed feelings as a person who plays games to see a guy who actually played them get cut while other CEOs at companies like Activision and Capcom continue churn out endless sequels and run their products into the ground. During Riccitiello's reign, we saw issues like the collapse of NBA Live, Star Wars: The Old Republic's poor performance, the recently bungled SimCity launch, a heavy focus on microtransactions in games like Dead Space 3, problems with massive layoffs while continuing to purchase subsidiary game production companies, and issues like the horrendous endings of Mass Effect 3 and the adverse reaction to them.

That said, we also saw EA try things like publishing Brutal Legend, continue releasing the Command & Conquer series despite some claims that the RTS is either dead or dominanted solely by Blizzard's Starcraft, publishing BioWare products like Dragon Age, the release of bizarre games such as Spore, and even allowing subsidiary companies to do things like Mythic's attempt to revive the Ultima series.

So it's a mixed bag. There is a lot that EA has done that I am uncomfortable with and easily annoyed about. However, there are also some things that I will applaud them for. I hope that whatever happens, that the company manages to continue to develop and produce interesting and innovative titles and effectively revive older franchises that have been sorely missed, and that EA manages to find a way to be profitable without abusing its products and production houses or focusing too heavily on online-only services, draconian DRM which punishes the legitimate customer, or microtransactions(particularly in games I already had to pay to purchase). But I admit that I'm not holding my breath on those.

[Opa Opa]

Well it'll be interesting to see how EA goes on from here.

I don't like their DRM/microtransaction practices any more than all the other companies out there.

[Luke]

Something tells me the board wanted him gone years ago, but that is pure speculation. There have been some misfires, but do they still not see a hefty roi?

[Ack]

[Luke]

They are still in the black, correct?

But yeah, that's not a trend you want to see, even with affordable losses.

[Ack]

Yeah, I believe they are still in the black, but during this period they also had a 17% workforce reduction and other events that I'm sure has helped shake investor confidence. I expect this was really only a matter of time for them.

[01toubib]

Someone is going to have to explain this to me. They make a new series of each sports game every year, they have locked in revenue from those games each year, even if they didn't change anything from the previous year. How are they not mega profitable? Did they over-expand or something?


Also, I will give props on EA for making the Fifa series competitive in this generation of console gaming. Pro Evolution soccer & Winning Eleven were the soccer games to have on PS2. Come around PS3. Fifa is now the big series to own. I will admit though that NBA live has lost it's touch, I feel NBA 2k is now the better game to own.

[FerretGamer]

Someone is going to have to explain this to me. They make a new series of each sports game every year, they have locked in revenue from those games each year, even if they didn't change anything from the previous year. How are they not mega profitable? Did they over-expand or something?


Also, I will give props on EA for making the Fifa series competitive in this generation of console gaming. Pro Evolution soccer & Winning Eleven were the soccer games to have on PS2. Come around PS3. Fifa is now the big series to own. I will admit though that NBA live has lost it's touch, I feel NBA 2k is now the better game to own.

They haven't even made a proper NBA game in some time now. EA actually cancelled NBA Elite '11 right before it was going to store shelves because it was so crappy. It's apparently a collector's item because some copies made it into circulation. As the saying goes, just because it's rare doesn't mean it's good.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Wow...that is abysmal. With that sort of performance, it is amazing that he wasn't fired years ago.

[01toubib]

Wow...that is abysmal. With that sort of performance, it is amazing that he wasn't fired years ago.

You can't blame him for Late 2008, the market crashed, all stocks plummeted down during that period. You can blame him for not being able to recover the company afterwards though.