EA Executive Cites Need For More Innovation

The Wall Street Journal has comments from John Riccitiello, EA's new CEO, who has an interesting observation: maybe we should make more original games. "In his first in-depth comments since taking the job in April, John Riccitiello says he worries that the Redwood City, Calif., company and others in the industry make too many games that lack innovation. He says EA and others need both to push more aggressively beyond traditional audiences to court 'casual' consumers and to experiment more with new sales approaches -- outside the norm of selling $50 to $60 discs with 40-hour games that he says few players ever finish. 'We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play,' Mr. Riccitiello said in an interview." Perhaps looking beyond yearly updates to established franchises might be a way to go too. We've seen EA form a casual studio, re-organize the flowchart, adopt the Wii wholeheartedly ... does anyone see EA actually reinventing itself, or is this too little too late?

noshitsherlock tag?

[splutty]

Can we have that added somehow? It would definitely apply to this article...

Here's a proposal: After releasing Generic Football Game 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, really do something inovative, surprise the public and release...... GFG2007.5!

Hypocrites - total hypocrites

[WidescreenFreak]

This comes from EA?! This from the company that bought and subsequently destroyed Origin Systems, the company responsible for the awesome Ultima and Wing Commander series, two of the best game series ever created? This from the company that bought Bullfrog only to dissolve them into oblivion? (Bullfrog created the brilliant Magic Carpet, which contained true destructible terrain, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, among others.)

EA is the epitome of a company that abhors creativity by buying out companies that are known for creativity and then destroying them all so that they can put more funds to Yet The Same Sports Game Series 2008.

Maybe if EA delivers a mea culpa about how they've helped to destroy creativity in gaming will I give them any credibility with respect to this statement. A long-overdue apology for the total disaster known as Ultima: Ascension wouldn't hurt either.