EA's Riccitiello: Giving a Shit about Quality
Plus: lack of clarity No 1 cause of bad games
John Riccitiello
Electronic Arts' CEO John Riccitiello might have said "I don’t think the investors give a shit about our quality", but he also believes “that there is no inherent conflict between great creativity and achieving strong profitability”.
Speaking in an interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Riccitiello said, “Some of my greatest beliefs regarding gaming are that our art form is today – or certainly has the potential – to be recognized as the peer of the best of Hollywood movies.
"I want to help others see that. I also believe that there is no inherent conflict between great creativity and achieving strong profitability – I believe they go hand in hand. More than trying to work on my legacy, I want to work to prove both of these points are true and see a day when these ideas are seen as common knowledge.”
He did, however, acknowledge that as a business, EA's success lies in the numbers. “This is a business and much of our success will be measured with a calculator – sales, revenue, profit and improving shareholder value” going on to qualify it with, “There is also a qualitative aspect of our industry. Making games we can be proud of. Pushing boundaries. As I mentioned above, I believe the quantitative and the qualitative measures go well together.”
Is anyone else getting the impression that Riccitiello is a man getting neck-ache from constantly turning his head from shareholder to gamer and back again? Whichever way he's facing, he has a lot of legwork to do in the face of ever-mounting competition from ActiBliz.
Addressing the issue of which development issue Riccitiello wishes he could instantly solve, he said, “Pre-production – I'd have teams work to get to far greater design clarity before they begin full-scale production. Lack of clarity up front is probably the #1 reason why games are late, over budget or, in some cases, not that good.” So now we know.
Speaking in an interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Riccitiello said, “Some of my greatest beliefs regarding gaming are that our art form is today – or certainly has the potential – to be recognized as the peer of the best of Hollywood movies.
"I want to help others see that. I also believe that there is no inherent conflict between great creativity and achieving strong profitability – I believe they go hand in hand. More than trying to work on my legacy, I want to work to prove both of these points are true and see a day when these ideas are seen as common knowledge.”
He did, however, acknowledge that as a business, EA's success lies in the numbers. “This is a business and much of our success will be measured with a calculator – sales, revenue, profit and improving shareholder value” going on to qualify it with, “There is also a qualitative aspect of our industry. Making games we can be proud of. Pushing boundaries. As I mentioned above, I believe the quantitative and the qualitative measures go well together.”
Is anyone else getting the impression that Riccitiello is a man getting neck-ache from constantly turning his head from shareholder to gamer and back again? Whichever way he's facing, he has a lot of legwork to do in the face of ever-mounting competition from ActiBliz.
Addressing the issue of which development issue Riccitiello wishes he could instantly solve, he said, “Pre-production – I'd have teams work to get to far greater design clarity before they begin full-scale production. Lack of clarity up front is probably the #1 reason why games are late, over budget or, in some cases, not that good.” So now we know.
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Comments
SuperSaiyan4 21 Jan 2009 13:12
1/1
Its like telling yourself you will definently fix that bookshelf tomorrow...Only to not do so.
The only game to have come out of EA flawless and in my opinion fantastic and very suprising is Dead Space, other games just don't have anything new or anything interesting and contain bugs, flaws etc.
Take NFS series for example when the first title for the 360 came out it looked great graphically but lacked things like simple physics, AI and it had frame rate problems.
The second one came out called Carbon and that looked bad compared to the first, had dreadful frame rate problems and online was poor too.
So now onto the third Pro street looks great but overall just terrible given the direction the series went.
Then the fourth Undercover, flaws from the 1st and second along with some new ones.
Then EA wonder why the series is doing soo badly and the series gets poor reviews yet it sells because gamers like me that are into the series want a racer they can mess around with.
EA need to stop getting actors and movie sequences etc and actually spend time making a great game, I remember back with NFS series was great on the PC.
The only game to have come out of EA flawless and in my opinion fantastic and very suprising is Dead Space, other games just don't have anything new or anything interesting and contain bugs, flaws etc.
Take NFS series for example when the first title for the 360 came out it looked great graphically but lacked things like simple physics, AI and it had frame rate problems.
The second one came out called Carbon and that looked bad compared to the first, had dreadful frame rate problems and online was poor too.
So now onto the third Pro street looks great but overall just terrible given the direction the series went.
Then the fourth Undercover, flaws from the 1st and second along with some new ones.
Then EA wonder why the series is doing soo badly and the series gets poor reviews yet it sells because gamers like me that are into the series want a racer they can mess around with.
EA need to stop getting actors and movie sequences etc and actually spend time making a great game, I remember back with NFS series was great on the PC.