You Won't Have John Riccitiello to Kick Around Anymore

Brilliant headline.

He made huge bets that didn't pay off financially but I believe his heart was in a good place. We wouldn't have Dead Space or Mirrors Edge without him.

I will always remember him as the man who briefly endeavored to make EA the good guy by throwing weight behind new IP. He was a victim of circumstance as much as anything, I think.

If losing trust and confidence were enough then the EA offices would be a crater right now that instantly killed anything that walked near it.

John R was one of the founders of Elevation Partners, who owned Bioware (and Pandemic) before it was sold to EA. So he did give you Mass Effect anyway, kind of

I'd just listened to the crew discussing how he won't have a future at the company on the BombCast. Fingers crossed for Peter Moore.

If we're looking for someone with some authenticity, look no further:

@abdo: You beat me to it.

There's a fundamental difference between internet trolls and real life consumers and investors.

Seemed like Battlefield was, by and large, unaffected EA contamination under John Riccitiello. So at least he kinda had that right. Sure the single player was kinda sub-par in 3, but honestly the multiplayer was/is still great and avoided the publisher's taint.

No guarantees what how next CEO will treat the series, the only solid franchise EA handles that I care about anymore. Hopefully he (let's be real folks) won't force DICE to screw around and run it into the ground as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or SimCity.

Regardless of who the next CEO is I am betting very little will change at EA.

I really hope he gets paid his pink slip in microtransactions. No, seriously, I was never able to connect with the guy. He belongs in a galaxy far, far away.

And ME3's ending still sucks.

Here's hoping that the new guy realize how terrible all the online only, DLC, pre-order shit is and cuts back. Though deep down I know it's just going to keep getting worse.

Good move. Now please don't find work ever again. At least not as a CEO in the games business.

It's weird that this happened now rather than, say, post-TOR. I wonder what changed? EA have been consistently falling short of the mark for a while and every time EA puts out another stinker we have the "how long does Riccitiello still have?" conversation.

Not at all surprised.

Well, good to know that things have a chance to possibly change, just a bit.

The only thing that the company is the going to take away from Sim City is that it sold tremendously well.

Yep, this. Let's also add Brütal Legend to that list.

I think he was forced by investors to make some hard decisions that didn't sit well with gamers, resulting in pumping out sequel after sequel with diminishing returns.

Let's remember the early Riccitiello!

And I doubt the next CEO (probably Peter Moore) will adopt a more gamer-friendly strategy. If anything, it'll get worse.

@oscar__explosion said:

@retrovirus said:

Yes. He's just the guy to revitalize the image of EA into the digital future!

@snail said:

@mattyftm said:

JEFF GREEN FOR CEO!!!!!

This I can get behind. Screw the Peter Moore supporters.

I would be totally on board with this, but after what he was saying about teenage girls on the Tested Dadcast I don't think anyone would make him president of anything. (I still throw all my support at him nonetheless)

To be fair, he was sharing a cautionary tale and that was another dad who said that teenager bit in his story.

@p_p_o_d said:

Fantastic. Just fantastic.

Well we all saw this coming...

Guess I'll download that star wars mmo... now that I'm actually reminded of it. Shit's free, right?

Sim City has nothing to do with it, I'd bet. If anything, they would see the server stress as a healthy sign that the game has sold well over expectations.

But, wtf on the shout out to Real Racing 3. Is that seriously the pinnacle of their gaming achievement he is claming? Facepalm.

It's amazing how gratifying it is to finally read these words.

@retrovirus said:

Yes. He's just the guy to revitalize the image of EA into the digital future!

@snail said:

@mattyftm said:

JEFF GREEN FOR CEO!!!!!

This I can get behind. Screw the Peter Moore supporters.

e-e-e-emptyquote

The second video game collapse has been brewing for a while and now we are closer than ever to the cleansing fires.

Just gonna leave this here.

I'm gonna miss him. Early goings this gen were so promising. And then harsh reality set in. Oh well...

The cardinals of EA will now meet for their isolated enclave wherein they will elect the next CEO.

If FY14 means Fiscal Year 14, business people are even crazier than video game fans.

Thank you for Dead Space Mr. Riccitiello. It was one of the best things to come out of EA in a long time.

John's resignation reads like a press release about EA games. Why would John mention specific games as if the new CEO would never have heard of them. It's odd...

Jeff Green 2013!!

So long Riccitiello. It isn't too late: We can still save Electronic Arts. There's still life under that withering carcass, somewhere...

I'd say they fired their CEO over it, but if you think those two are purely coincidental.

I can still blame him for a good one or two years of the games and shitty business practices that might pop up and continue to blame him for the shitty business practices that EA have implemented during his tenure. Stepping down doesn't magically absolve him from being a massive piece of shit.

If I could kick him around I would, but I can still hope somebody someday will kick that cunt in the jaw. Literally.

I feel bad for him. Hope he finds success in his next venture.

Definitely. He went in with good intentions and up until 2010 or so, things looked pretty good. New exciting IPs were created and quality sequels were coming out. It's shocking how it all went downhill so fast. They're nearly back at square one now, though I'd sure as hell rather play their current output than what they were spitting out last generation, if I had to choose. Part of me hopes Peter Moore will step in and straighten it all out, but I can't help but wonder if EA have simply become too damn big for their own good.

But Bioware was at the time owned by Elevation Partners, the investor group Johnny Ric was part of before becoming EA CEO. So once again this is really all Bono's fault.

Investor panic over media dropping jaws at Sim City maybe tipped the scale! Sinking-ship-leaving

Well, it took me one month to complete one class story arc. While I did have a few alts, I plugged the majority of my time into that one character. I played the shit out the game with a friend and we had an absolute ball. But, we really wanted to get into pvp and the end-game stuff was pretty boring. I hope that Elder Scrolls Online is good. Again, I hope they scale it back a bit and try to do an excellent job on a few aspects and then add to it in the future. TOR simply had too many systems that needed to be amazing for people to really stick with it.

Simply copying World of Warcraft is not a good idea. They need to build out their own niche over time and not expect to dethrone the king in the first six months.

I care more about EA games now than I did 7 years ago.

Oh. My. God.

Flawless Victory.

dat SimCity fallout

He is out for the very simple reasons already presented in the article. The fiscal year is up, they under performed and that's all on his plate.

Under a different timeframe the financial success of Sim City might well have prevented this move, at least a while longer.

Everyone who is overly excited about this, remember that the new CEO is going to be chosen by the board of directors and that they will likely still have the same type of person in mind. I have little to no faith that they are interesting in trying to repair their brand.

Because he knows it goes into a public SEC filing that shareholders read and websites post. Because a CEO's resignation affects the stock price, and his tone is therefore an important form of damage control.

I can promise you private memos read nothing like this. Like the ones that come out in court hearings.

@spicyrichter said:

Agreed. I also tend to think the board is (at least) as guilty of most of the business decisions in EA as Riccitello (who was, at least in the beginning, honestly trying to bring new blood to a stagnant lineup), so I would expect things to keep going down from here.

You're next Kotick.