EA CEO John Riccitiello steps down

[bluedigger]

EA has just sent along word that CEO John Riccitiello has stepped down after six years as head executive and an overall 13-year career with the publishing giant. Board Chairman and former CEO Larry Probst acts as interim leader until the company finds a permanent replacement.

“I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and after six years I feel it is the right time for me pass the baton and let new leadership take the company into its next phase of innovation and growth,” Riccitiello says in EA’s press release. “I remain very optimistic about EA’s future—there is a world class team driving the company’s transition to the next generation of game platforms.”

In a letter sent to EA employees, Riccitiello explains the reasons for his departure, writing, “My decision to leave EA is really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year. It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. And for that, I am 100 percent accountable.”

Riccitiello’s time at EA was marked highs and lows. He helped shift EA’s focus to digital content over packaged products, launching the Origin storefront in mid-2011 as a first-party provider of EA’s game stable. He also presided over the massively funded Star Wars: The Old Republic during its development at BioWare. The last major title launch he oversaw, SimCity, earned headlines for its always-online DRM, design flaws, and mixed reviews. The company also took a publicity hit when Consumerist readers voted it the worst company in America for 2012.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/18/ea-ceo-john-riccitiello-steps-down/

Huh.

[Hayabusa]

1. Falling on his sword, it seem...

Can they free Maxis and BioWare now?

[Bjorn Against]

2. I wonder if this is related to the SimCity disaster

EA not only destroyed the reputation of one of the most popular PC series, they destroyed what little reputation they had left as well. EA has published a lot of good games in the past, but they have gotten too greedy and that greed has turned off a lot of people. They recently announced that they are going to have microtransactions in every single one of their future titles, that makes it totally obvious that they are planning on releasing every game in an incomplete state. I have no problem with DLC in certain titles if a developer wants to add additional content after the release of the game, but DLC should be something that we view as an extra not a missing part of the game and EA seems to be making it a missing part of the game.

[DainBramaged]

3. I am sure SImCity was the last straw in a DISASTROUS tenure