EA CEO John Riccitiello Resigns - UPDATED

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

There's only so far down a company can be dragged before something has to give and sadly, under his leadership EA have hit rock bottom. Highlights of his stewardship:

- Buying BioWare, the most beloved RPG developer of the last decade and destroying their reputation within the first two games they published after buyout. BioWare co-founders resigned.
- Shutting down Pandemic
- Removing Crysis 2 and DA2 from Steam
- Cutting all ties with Steam and 10s of millions of potential customers
- Forcing Origin on everyone
- Introducing microtransactions into AAA games
- Coining the phrase "mass-market appeal" and watering down every single game they publish to a bland, generic shooter
- SimCity ('nuff said)
- Forcing multiplayer on EVERYTHING
- Killing Dead Space
- Killing Medal of Honor (though in fairness MoH should probably have been put down humanely years ago)
- Company fell out of NASDAQ-100
- The prevalance of online passes, SecuROM and Day 1 DLC can be attributed to them
- The numerous and impossible to account for antics that saw them banning forum users from their paid for games, threatening bans over promised refunds, removing phone numbers, pulling products and sheer greed.

Almost all shitty developments in the games industry for the last years has been theirs. Not all though...ActiBastards gave us Diablo III with real money auctions and always-online DRM that didn't work for a single player game. They're further planning to continue with microtransactions in CoD. Capcom I believe got the medal for on-disc DLC controversy. UbiSoft for forcing uPlay on everyone when we didn't want or need it. There's more, but don't have the energy.

So anyway, Ricitello won't be missed. If EA want to dominate the games industry, they should hire Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk for new co-CEOs and leave them the f**k alone. 3 years people will be singing EAs praises.

Or get Gabe. Either way.

 

[Wraithsight]

Ima just gonna leave that there. Says my feelings quite succently.

 

[LetalisK]

I'm gonna be honest, I figured he'd be the last person to hold himself accountable.

I would say "Good on him for that", but he waited so long to do it that it seems more like faint praise.

 

[ron1n]

Pretty amazing legacy he's leaving...

Published 3 big budget MMO failures: (WAR,SWTOR,Secret World).

Saw EA drop from off the NASDAQ 100.

Killed the Medal of Honour franchise (which had been around for 14 years) in the space of 2 years.

The creation of Origin.

Killed Pandemic Studios and all but killed Mythic Entertainment.

Oversaw the cutting of thousands of jobs and posted losses in the hundreds of millions.

Saw EA named the most hated company in America, beating out AT&T for a golden poo trophy.



But hey...There was always Simpson's Tapped out right?

 

[piinyouri]

Respect to the man for taking accountability.

 

[faefrost]

Respect to the man for taking accountability.

If you don't believe that the board came to him and said "Time to go" than I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. He hasn't taken accountability for anything in years. he didn't now. It's just less embarrassing for all involved than to say "We fired his ass".

 

[KeyMaster45]

Lets not go cheering to soon. I expect the next guy to be much worse then him

I know right? The gem of wisdom "When one evil falls there will always be a greater one to take its place" sure comes to mind with this news. Still I can't place all the blame on him as there were no doubt countless others under him that agreed, and still agree, with his policy decisions. Of course the real puppet masters are the board of directors who no doubt have zero understanding of the gaming industry and are impossible to dethrone shy of buying out all their stock.

 

[Colt47]

Wait, does this mean that EA might improve after all of his final planning decisions take their course?

 

[Living Contradiction]

I have to hand it to the man, he could lie like nobody else. Jim Sterling will probably give him a memorial next Monday and that will be a treat to watch.

I'm quite interested as to who's going to sit in the CEO's chair when Probst steps back to join the board again.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Rejoice, for nothing of any significance has happened today!

Yeah, business as usual for EA. It hasn't crashed or burned nearly enough to realize that, gosh darn, microtunzuctions ain't so nifty after all! Well, shucks...

Ahem.

I'll rejoice once DLC stops being profitable, which doesn't seem like it'll ever happen.

 

[Frozengale]

Good on him for at least saying that all the bad things that have happened have been his fault.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

EA have been getting desperate lately, I'm honestly surprised it took this long.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

I'm gonna be honest, I figured he'd be the last person to hold himself accountable.

I would say "Good on him for that", but he waited so long to do it that it seems more like faint praise.

Was waiting for someone to bring that up. Yeah yeah, too little too late and all, but amidst all the gag-inducing praise for EA's contributions to the industry, that resignation letter at least contained some admission of failure coupled with the words, "I am 100 percent accountable." If nothing else, it's more than I think any of us expected of him.

Now, that said...

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Though he is gone and it may be time for celebration we can't exactly see this as a new form of change for EA seeing as how similar practices will continue to live on with the company.

Remember the rule of two, there will always be a master and an apprentice.

 

[Xanadu84]

First they offer $60 games to apologize for a a crappy few days of a $60 game, and now John Riccitiello resigns and...and this is the shocking part...actually ADMITS that it is because he screwed up? In a world where most CEO's pull some bullshit excuse in order to save face? Is EA trying to be...ACCOUNTABLE?

I'm torn between my desire to mock them with my shock for all there underhandedness, and my desire to celebrate the fact that they are at least starting to try to act like adults. My opinion is still low, but you know what? This is actually a start.

 

[DeaDRabbiT]

Ding dong, the witch is dead. I don't think this is going to lead to a massive shakeup in corporate policy. A CEO is elected by the shareholders, after all.

Except that with all their "Digital revenues" their profits are tanking. I guess they are learning real fast that short profits aren't worth long losses.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic. It's almost the wild wild west right now with gaming, they are trying to push the limits of what they can get away with, and luckily the game enthusiasts out there are such a vocal bunch that the people that make our entertainment are getting the picture.

Be fair, give us good value, and don't sell us broken shit, and we will give you the monies.

 

[Tradjus]

Well, Ricatello certainly can't bear all the blame for E.A's spiral into self-destruction in my opinion, but I also believe that he had his hand in it too, pushing the company in the wrong direction and not ensuring better public relations with the gaming community. Hopefully the next C.E.O will make engaging with us and servicing our needs and desires as customers a top priority rather than balling up any notion of making us happy and tossing it into the wastebin.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well you won't see me shed a tear.

 

[Xanadu84]

Respect to the man for taking accountability.

If you don't believe that the board came to him and said "Time to go" than I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. He hasn't taken accountability for anything in years. he didn't now. It's just less embarrassing for all involved than to say "We fired his ass".

He could have VERY easily have said some bullshit story about, "Pursuing other interests", or whatever BS story that every other CEO in the world makes up when he gets ousted. And no board in the universe wants to get dragged into a pissing competition with a former CEO and suddenly make all their customers (And more importantly, investors) squeamish. He could have tried to save face, and he would have absolutely gotten away with it. Instead, he actually said that he screwed up, and taken responsibility when he didn't have to. In this day and age, that is AMAZING, and I can think of no other CEO who has done that sort of thing, and plenty of CEO's have screwed up just as badly or worse then him. Sure, I understand your opinion of him being low: Mine still is. But this was a honorable move, and I at least respect that.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

You know how I know that there is a God? Because this finally happened.