EA CEO Upset by Poor Review Scores

[Logan Frederick]

EA CEO Upset by Poor Review Scores

John Riccitiello, head honcho of Electronic Arts, finds EA's performance as indicated by review scores unacceptable.

Electronic Art's Chief Financial Officer has a record [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/81646] of being outspoken [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/74587] about improving the quality of his company's products. So when he discovered that the average Metacritic ranking of EA games fell from 2006's 75 (out of 100) to last year's 72 rating, Riccitiello had explaining to do.

"There is nothing acceptable about that," said Riccitiello to a group of analysts. "Our core game titles are accurately measured and summarized by these assessments, and that is a very big deal."

Metacritic founder Marc Doyle didn't plan on building an influential game review aggregator, but understands the role that critics' scores can have on game sales.

Doyle detailed, "We never created Metacritic as an industry kind of thing. It was always for educating the user. ... For a movie it's going to cost you 10 to 12 bucks and it's a two-hour investment of your time. Whether critics like it is not a huge deal. But a game costs $60 and 20 to 30 hours of your life, so you want to know ahead of time whether a game is good."

Despite his concerns, Riccitiello is cautious about injecting corporate advisory over the development teams. "The process often gets in the way more than it helps. That sort of circus has unfortunately sort of defined our company for too long. And it's not a good process."

Plus, Electronic Arts continues to perform well financially. He slid in the summarizing remark, "You don't cash Metacritic, you cash checks."

Source: Reuters [http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1930453120080221?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true]

Permalink

 

[Melaisis]

I originally saw this being broadcast all over Games Revolution.

EA are beginning to scare me. They stand up against FOX, admit to declining standards and now actually are paying attention to (albeit almost tiny) drops in critical scoring from independent journalists? What the bloody Hell is going on!? Where is the overly positive image they once gave out!? Gah!

Alright EA; we realise that you've just made cash-ins for the past half a decade; Its great that you admit it. But please stop moaning and get on with giving us quality, kay?

 

[WNxSajuukCor]

"Feel sorry for us, we screwed up studios we took over and our average gaming ratings slipped. But we're still cashing in!"

That's what I get from that statement from them. That last comment made me feel that they don't really care about the quality of their games as long as the masses are buying them.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

I, for one, welcome these new EA overlords who actually care enough to at least pretend to care about critical reception, shrinking talent pools, and overreliance on retreads. And who knows, maybe it's even sincere.

-- Steve

 

[Anton P. Nym]

argh, mouse-skip. content deleted by authour.

 

[TomBeraha]

To be fair - The CEO has to deal with EA as a business, not just as a content provider. He is rephrasing a very popular saying in most businesses. (You don't take percentage's to the bank). I've heard it a bunch of different ways. I don't believe it is fair to decry him for making his company profit, I do believe it fair of us to decry him if he isn't spreading that success to the people who ultimately make it happen. Monetary victories for EA are good insofar as they are also monetary wins for the developers and coders and individual people who make up EA.

I can't really jump on the hate EA bandwagon. Every company out there is made up of people, none of whom have risen to the top through stupidity. It really doesn't work that way. They have to deal with the business realities of investment commerce and have to be able to make choices that aren't the ones they'd like to make, but are the ones that their tools (which will generally be the best that can be made available to them) project as the correct course. EA would likely have produced several more Fantastic never-forgettable games had it let a few gut feelings go by, but the person who made that choice would just as likely be sacked for the 15 others that didn't pan out financially.

 

[[HD]Rob Inglis]

I'd rather see an improvement in quality and the such and see fewer games. I can respect something a lot more when it's quality and someone's spent some serious time on it.

 

[Katana314]

I think this is a good thing for him to say. EA has always been making money on their games whether or not they're rated well. It's probably a good thing that he still wants to make them high quality.

 

[Hey Joe]

I can just see John Riticello on the phone to Gamespot

"So I see our product scores have been quite low lately"
"Yes...well that happens"
"Yes...things do happen don't they. How's your wife Therese?"
"How do you....?"
*muffled female screams*
"I should very much like to see some improved scores"
"I....understand"

It is interesting how he's said that he understands the financial pressures can get to dev teams, but what he says in public and what he does in private may be two different things. Oh well, more Sims expansion packs! Wheeeeee!

 

[Sixties Spidey]

I dunno. EA's games should be unique and interesting. Not the same fucking game every year. Skip on the sports titles and the Need For Speed series for 2-3 years, then get to making them again. If Need For Speed Pro Street and Carbon taught us anything, it is never retread every year. That would be like making mario galaxy every bloody year. Their games should be an 80 percent average overall.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Okay, I have to take issue with these last couple of points. Just a little bit.

Review scores are important to publishers. They're a fantastic marketing tool that can be plastered all over packaging, in magazines, online, pretty much wherever. Great attention-getters. But it's a mistake to consider them an iron-clad descriptor of quality, and it's an even bigger mistake to assume the magic "80" represents some kind of watershed upon which a game succeeds or fails.

Dig it:

Divine Divinity - scored an 81, just over the mark, while its sequel Beyond Divinity rang up a 73
Bad Mojo - the cockroach game, dontcha know, scored a 74
Moonbase Commander, which you've probably never even heard of, got 77
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, so close but not quite there, with a 79, and Path of the Shell got 72
Arx Fatalis - this is particularly appalling, 77 on Metacritic
Shadowgrounds - even worse, a 74
Another World - that's the 15th anniversary edition, not the original, and it only got 75 - this is real wtf territory
Titan Quest - got another 77 here
UFO: Aftermath - a frikkin' 67!

So the point, and yes, there is one: Each of these games is outstanding in its own right, perhaps flawed, perhaps unconventional, but all well worth playing. You're really shortchanging yourself if you turn your back on games like these because they didn't hit some arbitrary average review score.

With regards to the original post, I'd rather see publishers take a few more chances. Rather than sweating quite so much about review scores, I'd rather hear Riccitiello say EA is throwing some money at a few indie devs who are working on some entirely new and original IP. I'm not suggesting they give up on their core competencies - keep on cranking out that EA Sports shit if it's making you money - but I would love to see a greater interest in the games themselves, rather than in how they're perceived and presented by mainstream review sites.

 

[DannyboyO1]

Review numbers tend to be worth very little. It's a number. When was the last time you looked up from a game you'd been enjoying for a couple hours, and realized the sun was rising... and said "Ok, that's 93 fun right there." Or eaten an apple pie and gone "That's totally 75%!" Which would be 3/4 stars.

Any time I'm curious about a game, I read three reviews. One high, one low, one neutral. I don't care much what the numbers are, I'm just trying to find someone who'll tell me what didn't work very well, what worked decently, and what it's really about, since the advertising blurb on the box generally resembles the actual product like the signs at a fast food place.

I know my tastes. I know what I've played, and I know what really thoroughly tanks. I read a ton of really bad reviews of "Vampire Rain". And every one of them compared it to spec ops games. None compared it to survival horror. And it is camp horror sneaking... with appropriately crap translation. For someone who finds such things amusing, it's a pretty interesting game. I'm never going to find a review that fits my tastes.

 

[Virgil]

Review numbers tend to be worth very little.

Unfortunately, while review scores may translate into only a vague and unreliable indication of quality, it's the only concrete indication that a game has until well after release. And they are influential on game sales, especially sales to the more casual fans.

The problem that EA is trying to address is that, in addition to consumer sales, purchase orders (and re-orders) from retailers are often influenced by review scores, as is the amount of promotion and shelf space that a game will receive after release. Sure, half the people on this site might claim that the scores mean nothing, but that's definitely not the case.

Bonuses to game developers are frequently tied to review scores as well, though this is something EA is less likely to care about (but probably more likely to implement).

 

[m_jim]

Hopefully, no one at EA is surprised by earning poor scores for endless re-hashes. The first rule of programming is "garbage in, garbage out.; bad games get bad scores. Perhaps EA is turning a corner, though. This, combined with the direction that I've heard ex-Microsoftie Peter Moore is trying to take EA, gives me hope that we can look forward to higher quality games from EA in the future.

 

[Sylocat]

How dare those awful game critics give bad scores to our crappy rehashed games? I know what to do, let's shell out millions in ad money to Gamespot then threaten to withdraw it if they don't give us good reviews!

 

[doughnut]

A quick checks on Wikipedia...

EA published about 21 games in 2007 (checking an apparently incomplete list: source [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games]) and about 16 of those titles were sequels in one form or another.

Well there's ya problem right there. People are tired of the same thing being fed to them again and again... and again and again and again...

 

[Zera]

A quick checks on Wikipedia...

EA published about 21 games in 2007 (checking an apparently incomplete list: source [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games]) and about 16 of those titles were sequels in one form or another.

Well there's ya problem right there. People are tired of the same thing being fed to them again and again... and again and again and again...

Ah the EA strategy as Yahtzee has pointed out. I would say something about this, but I dont think I own a single EA game.