You Won't Have John Riccitiello to Kick Around Anymore

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.

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

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

Not at all surprised.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

@abdo: You beat me to it.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Brilliant headline.

@branthog: I'm pretty sure the /s/ means signed so it'd be his actual signature.

@p_p_o_d: Haha, I tip my hat to you sir.

It's all Sim City. Losing money is one thing, losing trust and confidence is everything.

Anyone else notice that he didn't mention SimCity or Dead Space in the games he's proud of? Two of their biggest releases this year so far.

@pixeldemon said:

here's hoping

I would say it's a pretty standard resignation letter, though it certainly beats the time when my CEO resigned via a smarmy trite haiku on twitter to all the world (and the ~40k employees), before bolting with his golden parachute after doing a reverse stock-split that backfired and lost 80% of the valuation in only one year (on a stock that had already lost 80% of its valuation before the reverse split!).

That's a pretty damning thing to say about an MMO. Things were pretty different six years ago, only a truly crazy person would try anything like that now. I hope the Elder Scrolls MMO hasn't cost only a fraction of that.

Damn, I'm curious to see who the next guy is and hope he'll do awesome stuff with the company.

Pretty shitty headline. But that's right, I'm on the Internet so I must hate EA and Riccitello.

It seems to be doing really well on its F2P model at least. An initial disappointment certainly but it's rebounding somewhat.

Don't worry, more forced-online games, crammed-in multi-player, season passes, excessive DLC, in-game micro-transactions, annualization of every game, games with nothing changed each year but the number in their title, and shitty launch experiences is all we need to really boost our revenue and keep this ship on the right course!

Also, why did he sign his email with a "/s/" sarcasm tag?

None of this really matters because the board is so hell bent on microtransactions and cash shop type features and always online functionality in their games which garners ZERO SUPPORT from consumers. There are no gamers who want this. Their brand is suffering because they are trying to tell us what we want. If they can prove they want to change in the next year or so, fine. Until then, they will still see me not buying their games.

at least he will now have plenty of time to play Sim City.

Anyone else notice how Riccitello has slowly been turning into Palpatine over the last few years?

Side note: I just told my wife the news (she used to love Maxis games) and her reaction was this: "They fucked up one game too many! Time to go Johnny Boy."

He's already waiting

I think a Star Wars MMO has such huge expectations that they could never meet them fully. They should have done something a little smaller and then expand on it through expansions. Unfortunately, they went for the full monty and did not necessarily achieve it. The game was still fun though for about a month.

BOOM!

Real Racing 3 is nothing to be proud of.

Someone get Jeff motherfucking Green on the phone!

@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)

@paulunga said:

I know, people were excited about the new direction he was trying to take EA in at the time... until the economy went into the shitter, the gambles on new IPs weren't paying off, and they sank way too much money into The Old Republic. Then, the chosen one fell to the influence of the dark side. It was a sad sequence of events with some unfortunate timing.

its one thing to poison the well on niche games , but when your turning off a wide customer base to your company , its time to go before it gets any worse . had to stop the bleeding .

I'm not gonna shed a tear, the whole executive branch of EA and shove it as far as I'm concerned.

https://twitter.com/Greenspeak/status/313746393447677952

Hey! I'm looking for a new job!

The real tragedy is that it took two pages for someone to make this joke. Well done, sir!

And then they were kind of responsible for knocking the wind out of DA2 with the dev cycle given.

I mean I still really liked it, but it was not the product it should have been.

I love it how he used the term "FY14" he is so EA he makes everything sound like their sports franchises

Damn didn't expect to see this today. But considering what EA has been through in the past few years it's not a huge surprise. But between Geoff Green and Peter Moore...I think Moore would win in a wrestling cage match.