Electronic Arts chief resigns

Sorry I’m posting this so late, it’s my birthday! Lottery should start today as planned but late, late at night.

The chief executive of Electronic Arts resigned on Monday, a victim of a troubled environment for the big video game companies as well as of internal missteps.

“After six years I feel it is the right time for me to pass the baton,” John Riccitiello said in a statement.

He has been chief executive since 2007. His resignation comes as traditional video gaming is facing increasing pressure. Retail sales are falling — they were down more than a quarter in the first 10 months of last year — as consumers took to less demanding, less time-consuming and less expensive games on their smartphones.

John Riccitiello

 

“E.A. is the face of the gaming industry at a time when the market is in some important ways going sideways if not downhill,” said Lewis Ward, research manager for gaming at IDC.

Larry Probst, the company’s chairman and former chief executive, will run Electronic Arts until a new chief executive is found.

“Electronic Arts is certainly known for putting out some games that have a $60 price point and are positioned as a premium game but fall somewhat short of gamers’ expectations,” said Mr. Ward of IDC. “Whenever a customer feels he’s not getting a good value for a dollar, he’s going to take it out on you one way or another.”

Source: New York Times


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Comments

4 responses to “Electronic Arts chief resigns”

  1. Mărculescu Sorin Avatar

    To be frank I whould pay 20$ for SimCity5 NOW! Even with all the crap they gave us gamers with the always online mode. But also I want all EA games to be available on Steam. Nobody wants to have origin installed for simcity, uplay for farcry3, capsule for some other game, steam, dresura and all of those installed ad the same time just to get to play. I totally hate when i download the steam version of GTA4 and i need to install also Games for Windows Live. Am I right?

  2. laserad Avatar
    laserad

    now this must be a pretty good bday present then :P HB

  3. hunshiki Avatar
    hunshiki

    Happy birthday!

  4. Gokburt Avatar
    Gokburt

    Glad it’s going downhill, and happy birthday :)

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