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John Riccitiello steps down as CEO of Electronic Arts. [Resignation/Farewell Letters]

J

jcm

Member
Opiate said:
What about Skylanders, Starcraft, Diablo, Guitar Hero and WoW? ActivisionBlizzard makes quite a few games, but very few of them are single player, narrative driven, console focused games at this point.

I think this tends to be the problem for many people. If you like big budget, epic, AAA single player games, then yes, EA was "better for gamers." Big projects for EA like Mass Effect, Dead Space, Dragon Age, and even Dante's Inferno focused much more on this big budget single player experience than almost any ActivisionBlizzard game this generation.

ActivisionBlizzard has a certain type of game they make, and so does EA. If ActivisionBlizzard struggled, that would be bad for multiplayer/socially focused gamers. Again, if you are a single player, narrative driven, AAA console person, then yes, EA is more important for your personal preferences and their struggles are not good for your tastes.

But I do not think one would say ActivisionBlizzard is "bad for gamers." Just bad for a particular type of gamer.
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Didn't they kill Guitar Hero after running it into the ground by making more than one game year? So they have the annual COD game, the annual Skylanders game and toys, and the Blizzard games, which enthusiastically do everything people seem to hate about EA (DRM, always online, no steam, DLC and microtransactions). And he killed a bunch of games and studios along the way. Which part of that is good for gamers?

I think Kotick is a brilliant businessman, and if I were going to buy a video game stock ATVI would be the one, but I stand by my contention that he's no good for us.
 
E

evangd007

Member
Opiate said:
On PC that's possible, but I do not believe this would be a functional model on consoles. EA is in the business of making AAA titles which generate huge revenue streams that are on as many platforms as possible, and I have not seen much evidence of PS3 gamers being tolerant of PS2-esque graphics, for example. It's certainly a primary reason the Wii was so derided among the "hardcore" console gamer.

But yes, smaller scale projects can be kickstarted for PC with an avid fan base. You'll notice the distinct lack of console-oriented or even console multiplat Kickstarter successes, though.
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Opiate
Depressingly Realistic
(Today, 04:27 PM)

Thanks for crashing me back to reality.
 
Q

Quadraphonic

Member
jcm said:
Didn't they kill Guitar Hero after running it into the ground by making more than one game year? So they have the annual COD game, the annual Skylanders game and toys, and the Blizzard games, which enthusiastically do everything people seem to hate about EA (DRM, always online, no steam, DLC and microtransactions). And he killed a bunch of games and studios along the way. Which part of that is good for gamers?

I think Kotick is a brilliant businessman, and if I were going to buy a video game stock ATVI would be the one, but I stand by my contention that he's no good for us.
Click to expand...

They put Guitar Hero on hold as soon as it became unprofitable, and dedicated Neversoft to making another branch of Call of Duty games.
 
Z

Zen

Banned
Opiate said:
This is what I'm trying to caution people against.

People are hoping that this may signal better Steam support, less DRM, less day 1 DLC, and so forth.

It is much more likely to either 1) not change EA's core strategy in any meaningful way or 2) change it in ways that most GAF members like even less.
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Yep, Ricitello was already much more lenient than the shareholders wanted. Have fun posting happy gifs that he's gone when he actually tried to strike a balance between gamer and corporate interests.
 
1

10k

Banned
You can find out the real reason he stepped down if you log into your Origin account and download "The Ending" DLC for Sim City. It comes with free ME3 armor. Future micro transactions will occur whenever future updates about him are given.
 
D

diamount

Banned
Crewnh said:
Yeah, I get that. I suppose I just didnt figure that there could really be many people who could run a multibillion dollar company. Like how do you have the appropriate experience for that, haha?
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What I think happens is the shareholders vote on a pool of people to choose from, no idea if all of them have the ability to vote or just the majority shareholders.
 
O

Opiate

Member
jcm said:
Didn't they kill Guitar Hero after running it into the ground by making more than one game year? So they have the annual COD game, the annual Skylanders game and toys, and the Blizzard games, which enthusiastically do everything people seem to hate about EA (DRM, always online, no steam, DLC and microtransactions). And he killed a bunch of games and studios along the way. Which part of that is good for gamers?

I think Kotick is a brilliant businessman, and if I were going to buy a video game stock ATVI would be the one, but I stand by my contention that he's no good for us.
Click to expand...

Guitar Hero is apparently on Hiatus -- I suspect it will be a once-a-generation game now, a la Mario Kart, rather than an annual franchise. I have no evidence to support that claim other than it makes sense and that Activision was explicitly clear that they would, eventually, bring the franchise back.

Regardless, if you're picking on Activision for pruning their lineup, surely you would need to do the same for EA. Just 5 years ago they were releasing 70+ retail games a year; this year they plan to release 17. Activision has been hiring in aggregate, while EA has fired tens of thousands of programmers and employees this generation.
 
K

Kill Your Masters

Member
Demon Ice said:
Never forget.
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ly3qF7W.png

lol
 
J

Jive Turkey

Unconfirmed Member
Opiate said:
This is what I'm trying to caution people against.

People are hoping that this may signal better Steam support, less DRM, less day 1 DLC, and so forth.

It is much more likely to either 1) not change EA's core strategy in any meaningful way or 2) change it in ways that most GAF members like even less.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's way too soon to celebrate.
 
S

Sorral

Member
SatelliteOfLove said:
Wada will outlast cockroaches. He's a sorcerer. No one could piss away that much talent, money, and time and their career still draw breath otherwise.
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He will go the same way Tanaka had to go:"Health Issues"
If FFXIV bombs... Oh dear, I almost want it to just so Wada is out. My friends who will drag me into the game will kill me if they heard me championing for this though. :|

I won't disagree that he may outlast cockroaches after all the shit he pulled though.
 
G

Game Guru

Member
Chronoja said:
Yep, this is why I brought it up, since the moves boldness cost them in regards to some potential users. A lot of people got burned by their decision and opted to not follow through on buying EA games. I personally haven't bought a game on origin either other than Battlefield 3. It was not a decision made out of hate, just a general sense of "I really can't be bothered loading up origin every time to play 1 or 2 games".

Add to that, I speak from personal experience here only, but the amount of marketing that went into games like Crysis 3 for example, nearly every major gaming site had huge advertisements regarding its release....yet when it came out it felt like it was a ninja release. What I was seeing was a reminder that the game existed and had a man holding a bow in it all over the place, but was it showing up in the Steam "coming soon" list where it would actually pique my interest? no it wasn't

Again, this isn't about Steam vs. Origin, it's just me pondering whether the large push in marketing power for their games and platform worked towards or against them, in contrast to say, higher visibility on steam's store front.

I agree we will probably never truly know but it's a question worth asking to since it's generally from consumer response that we can guess.
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I assume going with Origin exclusively meant that EA doesn't have to share 30% of their profits with Valve. There is a profit vs. cost ratio where EA has to determine that the profits to be made on Steam outweigh the cost of having to pay licensing fees to Valve. This is likely what Notch considered for Minecraft and declined on.

Of course, this does ignore the fact that EA puts their games on every service but Steam and that Valve does not make any profit on games sold outside their storefront that use Steam for online, making it look more like EA has a specific problem with Valve than anything else. Really, I don't see why EA supports other services like Ubisoft's UPlay and not support Steam.
 
O

Opiate

Member
Duckhuntdog said:
Chances of Nintendo and EA mending differences now? Or still unprecedented support LoL?
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I will say this for the third time: it seems extremely unlikely that this will be a consequence of the firing.

EA may be missing profitable opportunities, but a focus on the Wii U at this point does not strike me as a highly relevant one. If you mean long term, sure, maybe, yeah, who knows what will happen to any company 10 years from now in a market this volatile.
 
B

Biggzy

Member
Game Guru said:
I assume going with Origin exclusively meant that EA doesn't have to share 30% of their profits with Valve. There is a profit vs. cost ratio where EA has to determine that the profits to be made on Steam outweigh the cost of having to pay licensing fees to Valve. This is likely what Notch considered for Minecraft and declined on.

Of course, this does ignore the fact that EA puts their games on every service but Steam and that Valve does not make any profit on games sold outside their storefront that use Steam for online, making it look more like EA has a specific problem with Valve than anything else. Really, I don't see why EA supports other services like Ubisoft's UPlay and not support Steam.
Click to expand...

Ubisoft and EA struck a deal whereby both of their services will be selling games from each others catalogue.
 
D

Dekadez

Neo Member
Nothing significant will change. Their CEO stepped down, they didn't replace their entire board of directors and didn't see any drastic change in shareholder structure.

Nothing will change for us gamers.
 
C

Corto

Member
Not very confident on a turnaround on recent EA decisions. If anything, they'll be reinforced and "better" implemented. Always online DRM, microtransactions and online passes will become prevalent. It's inevitable whoever runs EA.
 
J

- J - D -

Member
Goodbye, Riccitiello. I won't vilify you for succumbing to corporate pressures, there was a time when under your lead, great and unique games were being put out by EA unfettered by bullshit. Then the honeymoon ended and you started to abuse us.

I wonder if the next guy will find a balance between shareholder obligations and consumer respect. I'm all too worried that they'll double down on their current monetization schemes to recoup on whatever damage JR did in the past couple years.
 
E

Eusis

Member
ShockingAlberto said:
Stolar had a lot to do with Sega's demise.

His active attempts to smother the Saturn with a pillow to force Sega of Japan to hurry up with the Dreamcast being the most infamous.
Click to expand...
I do wonder if an aggressive, SMART marketing push could've saved that. Then again I guess you would've needed to not fuck the launch up in the first place.

I'm not sure if this news will be good or bad, I can't help but think for EA it'd just slide further with the exploitative crap.
 
G

GavinGT

Banned
jcm said:
I think Kotick is a brilliant businessman, and if I were going to buy a video game stock ATVI would be the one, but I stand by my contention that he's no good for us.
Click to expand...

It seems to me that ATVI stock could drop like a rock at some point in the relatively near future. The WoW money is slowly drying up, Titan isn't a guaranteed success, CoD isn't experiencing any significant growth, they're not in a great position for mobile growth, Destiny might not be all that, and the new consoles could very well underwhelm as far as sales. Their stock price has continually increased for years, but I feel it's largely been the result of capitalizing very wisely on a string of good luck.

At the very least I don't see how the stock price could get any higher.
 
Duxxy3

Duxxy3

Member
Eusis said:
I do wonder if an aggressive, SMART marketing push could've saved that. Then again I guess you would've needed to not fuck the launch up in the first place.

I'm not sure if this news will be good or bad, I can't help but think for EA it'd just slide further with the exploitative crap.
Click to expand...

$399 killed any chance of success for the saturn. The 32x didn't help.
 
S

Shaanyboi

Banned
As much as GAF kinda shits on him, I have to ask, wasn't it under his watch that we also got Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, as well as some of the more interesting stuff out of the EA partners program?

Riccitiello has made some DUMB moves, some choices that alot of people here aren't the biggest fans of. But is his legacy at that company really so covered in hatred that he can't be credited for some of the better, more interesting stuff EA had done?


I kinda have no reason to believe that a new CEO would be any better.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
So, does he mope about in his mansion and then dry his tears with a cash out of whatever stock he has which may climb on the news of his resignation, or does he wait until a permanent replacement is announced first? His whole leaving EA and coming back, only once he orchestrated a perfectly-timed sale of his co-owned Elevation Partners studio pickups, Pandemic and Bioware, always seemed too weird to me. I wonder which way EA will go from here in the long run...
 
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