Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer sat down with EA CEO John Riccitiello to talk about crediting on the front of game boxes. Why, he asks, aren't top talent like Will Wright featured on the cover of their creations?

In music it’s typically a writer and a band of four. With films it’s a couple of lead talent, actors and actresses, a director and maybe a cinematographer. With games it’s typically 30, 50 100 people that make these things and they’re all integral to the process. So I’m absolutely in favor of bringing forward the teams. But the team dynamic in creation of our product is quite different than other forms of entertainment.
...
I’ve always been of the belief you should give credit where credit’s due. And I think in times past major publishers would say “This is an Electronic Arts game” or ‘This is name-the-
other-publisher.’ It’s from them and it’s all about them. And the truth is, it never was. It’s really about the teams that create this stuff and we’re big believers in that. And I’m personally all about that. Again I don’t think there are any creator in the industry that would say it’s them individually making that happen.

The short answer, Riccitiello doesn't ever see Wright's name appearing on a box. Then he goes on to explain why Spielberg's name did appear there, back-peddling all the way.

EA: Why Will Wright’s Name Shouldn’t Be On A Game’s Box (Or: How To Give Proper Credit) [MTV]

The very frank John Riccitiello, CEO of EA, tells MTV Multiplayer "I think we take a step back every time we take a license and exploit it with a crappy game." He adds "That’s not what we’re about", noting that whatever changing perceptions gamers may have of the company aren't part of a conscious decision to change its image.

Whether that change is working — or responsible for the quarter-smile on Riccitiello's official bio photo — remains to be seen.

EA Vows To Not Make ‘Crappy’ Licensed Games, Pushes Original Content [MTV Multiplayer]

The Wii MotionPlus is going to be good. If I had to pick one thing we suffered from, it was imprecise control on the Wii. That meant certain genres were never going to perform as well on the Wii. There are a couple of franchises in our booth. Go look at Dead Space and imagine playing that game with a wand and a Nunchuk. If they improve the precision, then you could have a good experience.

Let's just hope Nintendo is able to get every Wii owner on board so we can actually see developers make the most out of it.

E3 perspective: An interview with John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts [Venture Beat via CVG]

There are three strong players in the sector. They have all got their respective demographics and geographies. Blu-ray on the PS trumps DVD on the Xbox 360. Xbox Live trumps the PlayStation Network. The wand controller trumps the traditional controller. They’ve all got their rock, paper, scissors competition going.

Give John Riccitiello a Blu-Ray-playing 360 with a Wii Remote and he'll be a pig in spit. The rest of the interview's also worth a read, if only to see him say "I don’t think the investors give a shit about our quality".

E3 perspective: An interview with John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts [VentureBeat] [Pic]

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that EA CEO John Riccitiello said "I hate E3 like this," hinting that a return to spectacle or the complete abandonment of the show were two viable options.

Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America is quoted as likening the event to a "pipe-fitters show in the basement." He may have just been referring to the Imagine, Petz and Ener-G portions of his own company's press conference, though.

Event may try to recapture luster [SF Gate]

Riccitiello also pegged Pandemic's World War II action game Saboteur for a pre-April 1 release, according to a report from GameSpot, missing its planned 2008 release. That's a huge blow to fans of shooting Nazis, but we hear that the Nazi shooting still needs more polish. You can't rush this stuff, folks.

Saboteur, Dragon Age slated for Q1 '09 [GameSpot]

You can play this game both at the street level, much like a GTA-style game, but you can also play it top-down, almost like you're in an RTS, controlling the strategy of the boroughs so you can see what's going on..

So...there are parts where you play, and parts where you command at a more strategic level? So...X-Com, with mobsters? Neat idea, if they can pull it off.

EA Talks "Godfather II" [Next-Gen]

It used to be...All Metacritics were higher once upon a time because it was ten professionals rating them. Now, sort of anybody with a pen can rate them and it ends up with a bit of a wider track some times.

Uh, John? Think you got your Metacritics and your GameRankings mixed up. But hey, that's a simple mistake for the head of one of the industry's biggest companies to make. Totally understandable. What's a little less understandable is how he continues.

EA doesn't usually get the benefit of the cult - 'everybody has to rate it a hundred' thing going on - that happens sometimes even when they may not, based on the review, have played more than the first fifteen minutes of the game. But that's a separate issue

Poor John. Poor EA! Silly reviewers, not unanimously agreeing that any of EA's titles are of the calibre of something like Mario Galaxy or GTA IV. What a terrible, unprofessional oversight.

EA doesn't usually get benefit of the "cult" says CEO [GI.biz]

According to GamesIndustry.biz, the Vancouver-based Need For Speed developers (pictured) have been slaving away on a brutal 12-month dev cycle for each entry in the series. Admitting that Need For Speed: Pro Street was just "okay", Riccitiello says that they've since added more staff, split the team in half, and put them on 24-month cycles, a winning formula that will hopefully make NFS: Undercover better than "okay." Congratulations to all involved.

Riccitiello: We were torturing Vancouver studio [GamesIndustry.biz]

Interactive entertainment is going to determine one great company and I think it's this one. One of the reasons I've come back is to try to take it to the next step.

There is more interest today from Hollywood to make movies out of our games than there is interest in our industry to make games out of their movies. There's a big reset happening now...

The buzz in Hollywood, which I heard from some Hollywood folks is people are worried whether Iron Man the movie is going to get killed by Grand Theft Auto the game. I don't think I've ever heard of that before.

Analysts, though? They think that EA's full of BS. Janco Partners' Mike Hickey told GameDaily.biz that "My belief is Rockstar would be perfectly happy if EA never put a bid in at all." Hickey called Riccitiello's perception as Rockstar savior "bullshit" not to mention disrespectful to Take-Two management and its developers.

Other analysts had their say, including Michael Pachter, who noted that Riccitiello's "white knight" analogy was "perhaps a misplaced attempt to sound clever." Yep. Fightin' words.

Analyst: EA's Riccitiello 'Disrespectful' Towards Rockstar, Take-Two [GameDaily.biz]

Sure, comparing EA to the Galactic Empire has lost its shine, but seeing a Photoshopped John Riccitiello donning a Darth Vader helmet? That's gold, Jerry. Gold! The guest appearance from "Chatty" Mike Pachter makes it worth your page load.

EatTake2.com [via NeoGAF]

He let slip in a recent interview with the Classic Metal Show that he had just recently licensed one of his tracks to the game. Well, he comes close enough for us to get a bit excited, saying of the tune "You Don't Understand" from his recent album "It's a super heavy song. That just got picked up for some video game, Road Rage or Road Rash, or something like that." Obviously, Bach is not a die hard gamer.

It wouldn't be the first time an aging musical outfit had peeped when they maybe shouldn't have. Queens of the Stone Age and Aerosmith both pre-announced some news last year about Rock Band and a pair of Guitar Hero games. We're just guessing that Bach doesn't know that publishers like to keep these things under wraps until the very last second.

We've contacted sources at EA for clarification on the rumor, but they have yet to get back to us.

Thanks for the heads up, Dave.

Update: EA got back to us with the following statement: "Though CEO John Riccitiello has recently mentioned it as a classic, beloved EA franchise, Road Rash is not currently in development." Is Sebastian Bach just confused or a dirty, dirty liar?

I was a bit of a prat back then, to be honest. To be fair, I think [EA] didn't do anything bad. I was just very immature, and I was coming to terms with not having 30 of my friends but instead having 200 strangers around me. That was difficult, and I made life difficult for them.

Our core game titles are accurately measured and summarized by these assessments, and that is a very big deal.

He's got a point, too. I'm much more likely to see a movie critics don't like rather than pick up a video game critics have told me is terrible. Then again, it seems like video game critics hit the mark with game reviews more often than movie critics get it right.

EA concerned with low review scores of its games [GamePro.com]

While Riccitiello was proud of his achievements at EA following his return to the company, he warned developers and publishers not to make some of the mistakes the company has made in the past. Those mistakes, he said, involved the stifling of creative talent and their ensuing departure.

Riccitiello took DICE attendees to school this morning with his talk on Game industry Economics 101. EA, like Activision, Sony, Microsoft, will continue to absorb developers, as it did with Bioware Pandemic last year. And that presents a danger.

"Organizations are not coming together in a good way," he said, resulting in less interesting products born of "creative failure."

In the cases of Bullfrog, OSI and Westwood, Ricitiello said that the belief that EA and its studios could be one big happy family, with a one-culture-fits-all mentality doesn't work. Those teams suffered, and eventually lost talent, because creative decisions were escalated to the top levels of the company and creative contributors were "buried in layers of bureaucracy and policy."

What does work, Riccitiello said, are what he called "city-state" teams, with strong leaders like the ones Bioware, Maxis, DICE and Distinctive. Outside of EA, he pointed to Rockstar Games, Valve and Blizzard as strong examples of the kind of creatively independent models to follow.

He had strong words for publishers who were looking to consolidate, saying "The command and conquer model doesn't work. If you think you want to buy a developer and take their name off the credits, taking away their autonomy, you're making a profound mistake."

The solution was to "Find the people you trust and give them the keys."

"It's been the longest, hardest transition in the history of the industry...Last Friday marked one of those points where you can say something's changed...Around the world, based on the data I've got, it was pretty clear that the transition is now over.

It looked like it might have been a two-horse race, but it's clearly a three-horse race...I think from this point, pleasantly for me, it's sort of fat city in the game industry.

Video game industry has turned corner: EA [via gamesradar] [image]

In the next five years, we're all going to have to deal with this. In China, they're giving games away for free...People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.

Nothing is free. We're guessing he means "ad subsidized." Because short of sticking actual commercials into games, it's tough to believe in-game ads could produce $59 per copy..actually, more than $59 since games are already getting ad cash.

Then again, Riccitiello should know of some master plans that we don't. Like, maybe communism is taking over America and EA will give every citizen a game pending proper numbers of "work units."

What EA's CEO learned from playing Madden NFL for 11 straight years [fortune]

At Elevation, Riccitiello was responsible for the private equity firm's video game division and oversaw the merger of developers Bioware and Pandemic.

Probst, a 23-year veteran of EA, will continue as executive chairman of the board of directors and take solace in his $37 million worth of EA stock.

Sweet release after the jump. Michael McWhertor

John Riccitiello Named Chief Executive Officer of EA

Larry Probst Continues as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Electronic Arts today announced that effective April 2, John Riccitiello will serve as the company's Chief Executive Officer and will join the Board of Directors. Larry Probst will continue as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Mr. Riccitiello served previously as EA's President and Chief Operating Officer responsible for global publishing, online and other corporate functions before leaving the company in 2004.

"We're happy to welcome John back as EA's new CEO," said Larry Probst. "His skill and vision as an executive and his experience in our industry have earned him the respect of our employees and shareholders."

"Leading EA has always been my dream job and I am truly honored that Larry and the Board have given me this opportunity," said John Riccitiello. "This is an extremely well-run company driven by outstanding studio and publishing teams. They've also made strategic investments in new platforms and markets that will help extend EA's industry leadership in the years ahead."

After leaving EA in 2004, he became a co-founder and Managing Partner at Elevation Partners. Among his responsibilities at Elevation, John oversaw the group's videogame business. Mr. Riccitiello also serves on the board of directors of Hyperion Solutions Corporation.

Some statements in the future tense contained in this release are forward-looking statements that are subject to change. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from the expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors which could cause the Company's results to differ materially from its expectations are described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2006 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2006. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and Electronic Arts assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for videogame systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA(TM), EA SPORTS BIG(TM) and POGO(TM). In fiscal 2006, EA posted revenue of $2.95 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

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