How to Fix Electronic Arts

[Atmos Duality]

Well one of the worst anyway.

Agreed.
With the fall of Zynga, they've certainly risen in my "Biggest Bastard Gaming Companies" list.

 

[SecondPrize]

The kind of leadership EA 'needs' is incapable of becoming a leader in EA. It's a catch-22. In a public company, the people who rise to the top do so because they're good at corporate politics and making money for shareholders. If that company makes video games, those people are in the positions which determine what games get made, what directions IPs move toward and how the games need to make money for the company. Those people are using their knowledge of selling products to make these decisions. You think they're going to step aside and allow people who actually have a knowledge of games to call the shots?
EA employs plenty of passionate game developers. The problem is they all work for the studios and the products they put out are formed by the hoops they have to jump through because of guidance that comes down from on high.
What you're saying EA needs from it's leadership is absolutely spot on, but it's ridiculous to think that a corporate board, answering to savvy investors who know bidness, will ever pick leadership based on anything other than the ability to move stock prices upward.

 

[uncanny474]

The only solution to the EA problem is the company going under and freeing up the IP's to be taken up by people who actually give a shit about making a game. No matter who is at the helm of EA, its owned by investors. And they won't let off the leash of mediocre money maker titles. As a company it is totally dysfunctional to its customers. There is no fixing this level of broken. Sometimes you just have to admit that its a complete failure, and start over from scratch.

All companies are run by investors. Ubisoft, Vivendi (who owns Blizzard), Take-Two (who owns 2K), every publisher who makes games (With the exception of Valve, which is privately-owned by Gaben), and almost every multi-state company in America are corporations, which means that they are owned by investors and their stocks are publicly traded on one stock market or another.

Your company being run by investors is no excuse for that company failing. Most if not all of the Fortune 500 companies are corporations.

 

[Antari]

The only solution to the EA problem is the company going under and freeing up the IP's to be taken up by people who actually give a shit about making a game. No matter who is at the helm of EA, its owned by investors. And they won't let off the leash of mediocre money maker titles. As a company it is totally dysfunctional to its customers. There is no fixing this level of broken. Sometimes you just have to admit that its a complete failure, and start over from scratch.

All companies are run by investors. Ubisoft, Vivendi (who owns Blizzard), Take-Two (who owns 2K), every publisher who makes games (With the exception of Valve, which is privately-owned by Gaben), and almost every multi-state company in America are corporations, which means that they are owned by investors and their stocks are publicly traded on one stock market or another.

Your company being run by investors is no excuse for that company failing. Most if not all of the Fortune 500 companies are corporations.

If the investors demand changes that piss off the entire customer base. Then its not an excuse its a cause.

 

[Agayek]

The irony of this article is that J.R. DOES get games. He DOES stay up late at night playing Battlefield and Assassins Creed. He DOES understand what gaming is all about, and his "money making background" aside, before he was CEO he was also COO/President of EA for nearly a decade. He gets it.

I have no idea if that's actually true, but he certainly didn't act the part. Under his leadership, EA got more and more ridiculously anti-consumer. It's entirely possible he's a gamer and understands the market, but if so, his attempts to effect meaningful change were blocked at best and ineffectual at worst. He clearly either didn't care about the market, didn't know it, or was prevented from leading the company he was in charge of towards the market.

Two of those three mean he doesn't get it, and the third means he's just flat-out incompetent.

 

[Dreadjaws]

The irony of this article is that J.R. DOES get games. He DOES stay up late at night playing Battlefield and Assassins Creed. He DOES understand what gaming is all about, and his "money making background" aside, before he was CEO he was also COO/President of EA for nearly a decade. He gets it.

I honestly don't know where did you get that idea from, but every single thing I've heard the guy say implies the opposite. He's aware of what games are, yes, but that doesn't mean he understands the media at all, or that he actually play games other than to test them for five minutes and blurt "Yeah, it didn't crash. Sell it."

 

[mjc0961]

The irony of this article is that J.R. DOES get games. He DOES stay up late at night playing Battlefield and Assassins Creed. He DOES understand what gaming is all about, and his "money making background" aside, before he was CEO he was also COO/President of EA for nearly a decade. He gets it.

You guys are clamoring for leadership who gets gaming and does not pander to investors... well guess what? That's EXACTLY what he did. He told investors to sit down, shut up, and be patient and trust him to make a long term bet that focusing more on gaming than on the money would make a long term return. It didn't, and that's why they eventually removed him even though he slowly tried to shift closer to their ideas and walk a fine line between the two, and that's why he was replaced (temporarily) with his predecessor Probst who is more of "an investor guy" and truly doesn't give a shit about gaming, based on my personal experiences.

...

I'm not sure you're talking about the same company that everyone else is talking about. If he got games, why microtransactions? Why so many scummy DLC practices? Why online passes? Why always-online DRM? Why Origin? If that was his idea of a "long term bet focusing more on gaming than money", then you're only furthering this article's point that he (and likely everyone else at EA) had absolutely no fucking clue at all about games.

I have no idea if that's actually true, but he certainly didn't act the part. Under his leadership, EA got more and more ridiculously anti-consumer. It's entirely possible he's a gamer and understands the market, but if so, his attempts to effect meaningful change were blocked at best and ineffectual at worst. He clearly either didn't care about the market, didn't know it, or was prevented from leading the company he was in charge of towards the market.

Two of those three mean he doesn't get it, and the third means he's just flat-out incompetent.

I honestly don't know where did you get that idea from, but every single thing I've heard the guy say implies the opposite. He's aware of what games are, yes, but that doesn't mean he understands the media at all, or that he actually play games other than to test them for five minutes and blurt "Yeah, it didn't crash. Sell it."

And these, just to further drive home the point of how utterly ridiculous the claim of "J.R. did get games and focused more on gaming than money" is.

 

[grigjd3]

Sounds great. They aren't going to do it though. Investors want known quantities and there are very few individuals in the gaming world that provide that sense of comfort the investors desire.

 

[Yuuki]

EA hiring someone who actually plays and cares about videogames is nothing more than a pipe dream. The odds of a whole group of businessmen-in-suits being led by someone who has the spare time to play games for fun? It's interesting to envision, but I just don't see that happening.

 

[Somebloke]

At any rate, the chairman is always beholden to the rest of the board.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

I suspect it's not so much the background of game company CEOs but their approach.

EA seem to acquire studios and become too hands on; Contrast this to Zenimax who have made acquisitions and allowed their new divisions a large degree of autonomy.

EA could have left Bioware pretty much alone to get on with making games as they always had and then just sat back and reaped the profits but it was clear that alot of directives were sent down to Bioware, which resulted in a tangible change of design philosophy.

 

[cookyt]

Shamus, you truly are a shining beacon of reason in this cold, reasonless world. You really think it should be obvious that you want to hire people who understand what their jobs entails, but no. We're saddled with an upper management which is completely out of its field, and doesn't even know where to start. I would prefer that EA starts making good decisions and recovering from its current slum, but I'm really doubting if that's possible at this point.

 

[Sargonas42]

I honestly don't know where did you get that idea from, but every single thing I've heard the guy say implies the opposite. He's aware of what games are, yes, but that doesn't mean he understands the media at all, or that he actually play games other than to test them for five minutes and blurt "Yeah, it didn't crash. Sell it."

I got it from listening to his quarterly speeches to the company, and from actually chatting with the guy in line to get Coffee on more than one occasion about the current weeks new release. When the guy really geeks out about a new game that came out the day before (and not even an EA one at that) you know he "gets it."

 

[bug_of_war]

This stuff is so obvious to us gamers. Be sure to send this article to EA executives.

This is basically why Valve is so successful. Anticipating market changes and what consumers want is key. That's exactly what Valve did years ago with their digital distribution platform. They knew what the future holds before everyone else did and now they're reaping most of the benefits. Valve is a company of gamers. As gamers and software developers they have the full insight into the industry and how it works. That's why they're so successful at what they do. It's so painfully obvious, which is why EA's decisions frustrate me to no end. It isn't that hard to understand gaming industry. I've seen here on The Escapist that most users can predict which games and trends will prove successful and which ones won't. That's how fuckin' obvious it is. A random member of a gaming forum could have run EA better than that moron.

I agree with 90% of what you said, but I highly doubt a random member of a gaming forum would be able to run EA. EA is a big business, which means that you're feeding a LOT of mouths, they are kind of past the point where in which they can make a 180 and immediately change their ways. I'm not saying they can't, but I am saying they need someone who knows how to do what's best for both ends, and as far as forum members go...yeah I'd rather take my chances with Vladimir Putin running EA.

 

[sid]

I need to take the time and say that you've got to be by far my favorite column in The Escapist right now. I found the site through Zero Punctuation, got pretty hooked to Extra Punctuation and most of Andy Chalk's works, but you really seem to wipe the floor with everyone every week. Hell of a job.

Plus you get to talk about EA without making it sound like a rant and are still apologetic about it, that alone deserves a small trophy.

 

[Revolutionary]

I see people saying "screw it let EA die".
let's not forget the damage that would do to countless people's livelihoods and to the industry in general. No guys, as much as I hate to say it I think EA going under would do more harm than good.

 

[Tmc_Sherpa]

I don't want to pee on anyones parade but history has shown that studios usually do not survive the death of the parent. Bioware and Maxis will not be dancing on EAs grave because they will have been shut down before that happens. Yes the IP may survive and something like Fallout going to Bethesda is possible (ie it ends up with someone who understands the genre) but it is just as likely that Mass Effect will wind up at We Only Make Shooters Inc.

 

[Necrofudge]

Honestly, I don't even care if the new CEO plays videogames. I just want someone who understands the needs of the community and finds a way to make money without ruining everything.

Maybe Valve could buy up EA...

 

[mokes310]

"Leadership takes vision. And you can't have a vision unless you have passion. The leadership of EA does not have a visible passion for videogames."

I absolutely agree with that statement, and it feels like once a generation (console) or so that this comes out. Then they get complacent and happy to cash-in on that waning passion...then the next console comes out and we rinse and repeat.

 

[Kahani]

A bit of passion would go a long way towards repairing EA.

You make some good points, but I'm actually going to have to defend EA to a certain extent here. The big problem is that this is not, in fact, a problem unique to the gaming industry as you suggest. Management is inherently an entirely different job requiring an entirely different skill set from the people they are managing. For example, hospitals are rarely managed by doctors. This is for the obvious reasons that doctors have dedicated their lives to being doctors; not only do they lack any training in management, most have no desire to spend their time shuffling paperwork when they could be out doctoring. It can be a problem sometimes, when the management and doctors don't understand each others' point of view, but for the most part it's unavoidable because neither has the skills or inclination to do the job of the other.

Gaming is no different. Of course it would be nice to have games companies managed by people who enjoy making and playing games. But those people want to spend their time making and playing games, and they can't do that if they're responsible for the management of a large company. So just as in every other field, the people actually doing the work will stay doing the work, while dedicated managers are employed to do the management part.

I think the main problem with EA isn't that the management don't understand games, it's that they don't understand games but think they do and interfere with their production. As long as both parties understand their respective limitations, they can get on just fine. A developer may not have much understanding of finances, tax codes and various legal thingies, so they need to listen to the managers on those points. On the other hand, the mangers need to accept that they don't know much about games development and need to listen to what the developers say on that front. It's only when one of the sides starts interfering in the work of the other that problems start appearing.