EA CEO John Riccitiello has voiced concerns that certain games companies are currently "boring people to death", and says they need to push aggressively to broaden the appeal of videogames to drive the industry forward.
Reported by the Wall Street Journal, Riccitiello, appointed CEO in April, said he's worried that companies including EA are churning out too many games that lack innovation and sequels that offer little more than predecessors.
"For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat" Riccitiello said. He reckons there just aren't enough games that are breaking new ground.
"There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before".
"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play," he went on to say, explaining he believes that on top of innovation much more needs to be done to draw in the casual audience or the games industry could lose out to competing entertainment sectors.
Agreed. EA are the publishers with the worst reputation for milking franchises to death with minimal annual updates, etc., etc., so it does seem very bizarre for them to be vocal about it!!!
Agreed. EA are the publishers with the worst reputation for milking franchises to death with minimal annual updates, etc., etc., so it does seem very bizarre for them to be vocal about it!!!
He only became EA's CEO in April - so hopefully if this is what he thinks then EA may be taking a slightly different direction from now on, and not just churning out the annual updates...
Sweet, sweet irony. EA, the biggest monopoly in soon to be the biggest business, is only going to be culpable for their terrible practices by gamers. They make way too much legit money to ever suffer from their investors. Why did their buying of american football seemingly slip under the radar? People have gladly let them get this big, and any sort of "trustbusting" doesn't seem likely. The fact that they own the Havok engine alone is a detriment.
That's exactly what I was thinking. You could just imagine seeing the business managers and marketing execs at the back of the room with their heads in their hands saying "Shaddap you schmuck!!"
As long as fans of certain games demand more and the copies keep flying off the shelves we'll be seeing a yearly update of game franchises as well as sequel after sequel for years to come.
They murdered the strike series. But more importantly, being the yank that I am, they bought the rights to our biggest sport, american football, to knock out a gaming company that has actually been working on innovation, 2K. That is a disastrous turn that we should be up in arms about. I mean, do you seriously want to see FIFA move forward with such slow steps? If there isn't good competition, then there isn't innovation. And I know that Winning Eleven is the real deal, but in the USA people just buy FIFA year in and year out. No matter what. Its a sad state of affairs.
I think that rather than hypocrisy like some people are suggesting this is more of a confession really...
"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play,"
Hopefully this will signal a turn around from EA because you'd think that as they are the biggest third party publisher that they'd have the most money to invest in new products, doubt it'll see an end to their cash cow games though.
It's 100% true of course, across the vast majority of games developers in the world (even if they are by far the worst). I'm just concerned over him apparently thinking that games need to become even more mindless and stupid. His idea of innovation sounds suspiciously similar to the wave of shallow, gimmicky Wii games being thrown at us (for the record, i'm a wii advocate, i just think it's not being used properly at all).
The thing i'd like to see most is a lot more freedom and versatility in control schemes, and more use of technology like Euphoria AI. Coupled with original gameplay concepts, of course.
EA is much bigger than its "biggest third party" developer status. I'm almost surprised that they haven't made their own system that only their games will play on. With that much money and that many tried and true franchises, why would they go out on a limb and publish a truly original game? They have yet to do that, and I seriously doubt that will change in the future. Expect a s**tload more barely better sports games, the occasional FPS, and their raking in money with every game that uses the outdated havok engine. Crysis looks kinda nice, but it really doesn't sound like its a good game. Plus Valve is a little bit better than that first-shot german comapny thats making that game, and Valve is clearly the company to beat for sci-fi pc games.
Agreed. EA are the publishers with the worst reputation for milking franchises to death with minimal annual updates, etc., etc., so it does seem very bizarre for them to be vocal about it!!!
He only became EA's CEO in April - so hopefully if this is what he thinks then EA may be taking a slightly different direction from now on, and not just churning out the annual updates...
If he only became CEO in April, maybe someone had written the speech for him that month as an April Fool's joke but he didn't realise and saved it until now?
If he only became CEO in April, maybe someone had written the speech for him that month as an April Fool's joke but he didn't realise and saved it until now?
Pot and Kettle certainly spring to mind.
If you actually read the article instead of skimming it as many people seem to have done, you'll see he's quite clearly including EA in the statement.
So it's just not the pot calling the kettle black, it's the post calling the kettle AND ITSELF black.
Just another blowhard CEO. The most boring games (especially updates) to hit the market in the last few years have come from EA. The company is far more concerned with implementing terrible copy protection and irritating their customers than innovating anything.
I had to return a game because their copy protection won't work with a SATA dvd drive. Now THAT's innovation. Previously, I had to beg for a replacement disc for B&W2. The customer Service rep rudely accused me of damaging the disc and insisted that they would have to "carefully examine" the disc. I sent it to them and they sent me a new one, presumably after some heavy forensic work. Too bad the asinine rep never apologized.
Tiger Woods 07 does not work with Vista, but 06 does! Brilliant! This is the quality work that comes out of EA?
Hot air from a CEO produces nothing. I'm no longer an EA customer and it will take a lot more than talk to change that.
When I read this topic I jumped to the first conclusion that maybe EA would now lead the charge in innovation, given that their CEO was making the statement. But then again this is EA...the most likely conclusion is that they realized that some of the mindless gamers who are their bread and butter might be catching on to the lack of innovation they are known for amongst more aware gamers. This statement is just a way of saying "look we really do care" to placate people into thinking they will change, when in reality they are most likely just trying to change the EA image rather than the product.
Indeed EA are one of the worst offenders but they did have a point.
All the rpgs coming out these days are all mmorpg (which i dont like) except for the elderscrolls series and final fantasy series which i do like.
Sports and beat em up rehashed every year. Too many dire movie tie in's that are simply on rails beat em up action or arena beat em up action.
EA did say they were going to make a open world single player rpg called lord of the rings white council but even that has been put on indefinite hold. The first sign of originality in EA and they are bottling already.
Come on games companies show us some initiative. Why dont some of these companies have part of their websites dedicated to gamers and have a form for posting game ideas, that way the gaming public could post replies and whoever the community liason is in the company or public relations, they could read through these suggestions for video games and see if anything inspires their imagination. It couldnt hurt and it wouldnt take much effort if they already have someone who updates their websites regulary.
Laughable really, but why do people buy the sh1t they still churn out. Anyoe who bys FIFA every year hasnt got a clue about games. We have good companies briging out the likes of Bioshock and Mass effect and they take years doing them to make sure they are innovative and different and they never sell as well as sh1tty EA games. Makes my blood boil. EA can f**k off till I see some innovation, I hope Army Of Two is the beginning of that, wont hold my breath tho as weve put up with their crap games for so long now
If EA are going to be criticised so frequently let's say the things they have done well:
James Pond: Robocod- publishers Burnout 3- publishers James Bond: Everything or nothing (I know that this game has passed many by but give it a chance) Need for speed most wanted
and their raking in money with every game that uses the outdated havok engine.
Since when do principles of mechanics go out of date? Just because it's been around for a while, that doesn't mean that it's no longer relevant, or that it has gone without update.
Crysis looks kinda nice, but it really doesn't sound like its a good game. Plus Valve is a little bit better than that first-shot german comapny thats making that game, and Valve is clearly the company to beat for sci-fi pc games.
Everyone always says that about crysis before they really understand it. The screenshots and early videos dont show what the game really is at all. Try playing Far Cry and you'll see that it's a completely gameplay-centric experience, and it's absolutely fantastic in that respect. Now they're making crysis, and it looks like the game actually has some substance in areas other than gameplay mechanics as well, and i for one think that is cause for interest.
I'd also like to point out that you last sentence was basically just 'Valve is the best, and valve is the best'. Nicely justified there.
I love valve, and i agree with your assessment of the situation with EA, but crysis is something they latched onto once they realised that it looked dull enough to attract the mainstream masses at first glance, but was actually amazing enough to cause a sensation once they all got it home. It's not an EA-conceived project, so you should disregard their involvement.
Welcome to the age of commercial economic rationalisation.
Nearly every artistic pursuit at the higest or most commercial level is subjected to re-hashing.
Look at the glut of 70's horror film remakes, the top 40 charts in most western countries, or in this case - The lame rehashing and sequel driven game industry.
Its hard in this era of acrural accountants taking over forward profit projections on company execs who want to make money and not innovate.
The irony being that EA probably has more sequel titles than any other software house.
Everybody has already stated the obvious, but it takes a somebody to bring attention to the important if not-so-obvious issues.
That somebody is Chieftain Gorgeras Wyrmskin, and his cigar. *Puffs cigar*
What should not worry you is EA's past and how the value statement of the latest CEO contradicts it, what should worry you is his proposed solution which once again follows the 'business-model is God' approach. Though he speaks of gamers in his analysis of the problem, they are disregarded in the solution, nay for they are actually revealed as part of the problem.
But what do I mean? Well:
EA CEO John Riccitiello has voiced concerns that certain games companies are currently "boring people to death", and says they need to push aggressively to broaden the appeal of videogames to drive the industry forward.
"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play," he went on to say, explaining he believes that on top of innovation much more needs to be done to draw in the casual audience or the games industry could lose out to competing entertainment sectors.
This is usually the point where a level 2 Gnome alt from the WoW forums comes in, has a read and says "I see what you did there".
I'm not sure what he actually means by making games 'harder and harder to play' but I'm not going to say this means 'games are too hard' because there are many awful games that are easy difficulty, but they are hard to play because they are so bad(thinking back to 'Advanced Lawnmower Simulator' on the Amiga here. So 1993).
I'm worried though by the focus on 'broadening games appeal', something which only makes them money but doesn't neccessarily mean innovation or enjoyment for gamers is improved; they just simply move resources to producing games for people who are easier to please. Nintendo did this with the genius Wii, but people should stop pretending now that this didn't come at a cost: the Wii is marginally more powerful than the original Xbox, it would cost as much as a PC if they tried competing with the others in terms of proccessing capabilities. Most innovation in games has come through the development of new graphic features, game-making toolsets and licensed engines like Havok, which incidently encouraged innovation in the actual games they were used for.
The real irony is not that EA is the worst offender for stifling innovation, it's that EA has always pushed games towards non-gamers. Let's face it, FIFA is rubbish and only a minority of actual gamers play it: the target audience is gullable 11-year old slightly-overweight football fans that think they will one day play for Man United or Liverpool. EA have always made games for people that just happen to sometimes play games, not gamers with an active interest and buy game magazines every month.
So the solution this guy is proposing is for EA to innovate: by doing what they've always done.
Love it if EA lost their foothold to Vivendi and Ubisoft Shows that consumers still have the power to make crap companies wake up. Make some new IPS will ya!
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