Big news today as the CEO of EA, John Riccitiello will be stepping down from his position, including his membership on the Board of Directors effective March 30th, 2013. Press release below.
Frowny Face 
Electronic Arts Announces Change in Executive Leadership
Larry Probst Appointed Executive Chairman, Effective ImmediatelyCompany Updates 2013 Fiscal Outlook
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced that John Riccitiello will step down as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors, effective March 30. The Board has appointed Larry Probst as Executive Chairman to ensure a smooth transition and to lead EA’s executive team while the Board conducts a search for a permanent CEO. The Board will consider internal and external candidates with the assistance of a leading executive search firm.
Mr. Probst has played a leadership role at EA since 1991. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Board since 1994, he previously served as the Company’s CEO from 1991 to 2007. As CEO, Probst successfully grew the Company’s annual revenues from $175 million to approximately $3 billion, led EA into new platforms such as mobile, online and other emerging markets and expanded its international presence to more than 75 countries.
“We thank John for his contributions to EA since he was appointed CEO in 2007, especially the passion, dedication and energy he brought to the Company every single day,” said Mr. Probst. “John has worked hard to lead the Company through challenging transitions in our industry, and was instrumental in driving our very significant growth in digital revenues. We appreciate John’s leadership and the many important strategic initiatives he has driven for the Company. We have mutually agreed that this is the right time for a leadership transition.”
On behalf of the Board, Lead Director Richard A. Simonson stated, “As we begin the CEO search, we are fortunate that Larry, who has a proven track record with our employees, partners and customers, has agreed to assume a day-to-day leadership role as Executive Chairman. He has 16 years of experience as CEO of EA and a deep understanding of the Company’s strategy, management team, business potential and industry trends.”
Mr. Riccitiello stated, “EA is an outstanding company with creative and talented employees, and it has been an honor to serve as the Company’s CEO. I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and after six years I feel it is the right time for me pass the baton and let new leadership take the Company into its next phase of innovation and growth. I remain very optimistic about EA’s future — there is a world class team driving the Company’s transition to the next generation of game consoles.”
Business Outlook
EA expects that its revenues and earnings per share for the current quarter will be at the low end of, or slightly below previously issued guidance provided in its press release dated January 30, 2013. Actual results may be materially different and can be affected by many factors, including the levels of usage of the Company’s digital products, initial sales of new products that will be released before the end of the quarter and other factors detailed in the Company’s annual and quarterly SEC filings.
EA will announce its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 results on May 7, 2013 and will host a conference call at 2:00 pm PT (5:00 pm ET) to discuss the results.
Was this voulentary or was he forced out? He was a very controversial CEO for a long time. Difficult to see what this might mean for the future of EA and BioWare.
How will this affect Star Wars: The Old Republic? Time will tell. What do you think of the news, TORWarriors? Leave a comment!
TORWars Podcast #152: The Terrors of Nuturing the SWTOR Community
Damn – you guys beat me to the news!
Is DeeDee dancing now?
Like a crazy cat lady on PCP! \o/
I bet someone used a Mind Trick to make him quit
+ 1 to that answer.
All i can say is yay
Simcity = disaster = ceo gets the ass = Dee Dee laughing her ass off !
Woohoooo!!!
Need a new CEO? Why not Zoidberg?
I’m pretty sure he was asked to leave..too many F’ups..and I’m sure he was the decision maker on not giving SIMCITY the server capacity to run properly in order to keep costs low.
But could we be getting a worse CEO to replace him? I mean the devil you know and all that……The next CEO could be a MBA with no clue on how to run a gaming company..hoping for the best
I agree, it was probably too many prominent mistakes. As to who’ll replace him, my bet is that it’s going to be someone we don’t know well, maybe from inside.
The reddit pundits were saying Peter Moore. I’m not familiar with EA’s structure to know whether that’s a good thing.
Last I checked, Frank Gibeau is a pretty cool guy.
My assessment is that EA is just not a well-run company. The stock is down for very good reasons: They don’t know what the frak they are doing and investors know it.
Customers will put up with a lot, even too much IMO, but they often have an inconveniently long memory and they aren’t completely stupid. They know that always online DRM is merely a crass money-grab. They’ll overlook that if the DRM is painless an unobtrusive, but the rage generated by the Diablo3 & SimCity server hiccups indicates that customers aren’t forgiving of such schemes when they go off the rails. These outages also drive the message home that you never “bought” Diablo3 or SimCity (or any game on Origin for that matter). You merely rented the priviage to play it if and when EA allows you to. Caveat emptor.
No amount of damage control can recoup so much lost good will.
I would note, however, that as bad a CEO as Riccitiello was, that the next guy will be worse. You can bet on it.
I hope the day comes when executives will stop treating video games as a business models and sacks with money.
It IS a business.
You can’t afford to keep making games if you don’t make any money off of them.
It normally works out though. Assuming that ‘our’ taste matches the large demographic.
If we are the minority then our tastes become an issue to work into a product and making it successful being making it more niche.
Niche markets normally from a business sense work by charging high amounts, and normally having a smaller demographic than mass production for the masses.
However with MMOs niche markets would mean smaller demographics, which also means less return on investment… which means the larger the investment the slower the money will be returned. This is theoretical. Since MMOs are based peoples tastes which widely vary. But money and other peoples investments need ‘examples’ and that means WoW being the standard.
(And the problem with this is also understanding the market. WoW players are committed to a game that came out at the right time as a grind fest game with later expansions developing towards that. So people will only want to play WoW as a top quality grind fest. Any substitute to WoW wont do well, becuase WoW is catering to a certain kind of customer that is an addict. They are not savvy customers looking for the best range of products, but a customer stuck with the WoW addiction and they are content with it. So games like swtor trying to get an addict addicted to a similar model wont work too well from the WoW customer base… that is. And trying to get new customers to play a similar model with something as large as WoW next to it wont do well as well. But the money examples will make business people see the logic differently. Thats the problem, and trying to innovate only a few things like VO, and cinematics works to a certain degree… but the problem was the cost of VO was too high impacting the overall delivery of swtor which might affect its future since it cant stand as a WoW clone and new MMOs are coming and the devs realizing they need to do something much more different than VO and story. But it seems some are fooled into over costing themselves with VO falling for the same problem and not having the benefit of being a sw ip as well)
So playing it safe means to go with standards like WoW which would be the mass manufacturer in a similar context but also charges a lot of money to cover their costs and making a profit.
WoW has made people with a business approach fear that their investment wont make a return with something too different with large investments.
So the part that works out for business making ‘fun’ games is that even though there are business decisions being made, they still make the game fun so people will want to play them. The customer is still being considered of course when it is a competitive market. However, things like having a SW IP, a franchise name, make it less of a concern of being a competitive market when the SW demands its own market share on the franchise alone. So swtor being somewhat successful as a WoW clone exists due to it being a franchise name of sorts. Similar to ESO and having a large pre existing fan base.
i must wholly disagree with your description of wow
i am not here to present hard evidence, i only wish to counter your statements by citing the storytelling and group/social play design ideals blizzard has been refining since before vanilla warcraft hit
There is absolutely nothing wrong with making lots of money. And also nothing wrong with planning your business model that way.
The problem comes when a “money grubbing” focus replaces a “valuable service” focus.
The fact is: IF you provide a service that your customers consider valuable and desirable they WILL pay – happily; evidenced by the popularity of things like and iPhones.
We live in a world where customers want what they want and are no longer just going to take what’s handed to them. Companies can no longer dictate what consumers purchase. They have to deliver what consumers want to make money.
In games, people want fun. They want an interesting and entertaining experience. They want control and participation in their experience. Arrogance, conceit and dictatorial philosophies have no place in INTER-active entertainment. That’s why they call it “inter”- active.
Companies have to focus on their soul, their essence, and the value proposition that their brand offers to consumers. If they do this, the money will roll in (Apple).
EA’s now former CEO obviously was no artist and could not see the proverbial forest for the trees. All he saw was dollar signs which takes the soul (and art) out of the product. Take a look at Sony & Blizzard for comparison. We know what they stand for and they know it too. EA wishes it could be Sony but they’ll never be as long as they have no soul.
I remember seeing the founder of EA on television many years ago when it was ALWAYS called “Electronic ARTS”. He was talking about how video games and interactive entertainment was the future and how it was in fact art. Those were the days.
Hopefully EA will get back to their roots (like Apple did) and return to being Electronic Arts again.
I’m utterly devastated. Can you tell I’m devastated? Buckets of tears could be pouring right now. Poor, poor John. After all the effort and time he spent gutting BioWare and doing just about anything to crush any real forward progress on and support for SWTOR,this is the thanks he gets? Never fear, though, I’m sure some industry will love to snap up someone who has intimate knowledge of money-sucking business models and ruthlessly extracting blood from turnips. He’ll fit in quite nicely as an insurance executive denying claims or maybe a loan shark.
What are the chances they could get one of the Doc’s back to run EA? Would they have the interest? Would they have the knowledge and skill? I sure would love to see someone who cares about quality over profit in that leadership position.
Huh, was not expecting this, though I suppose I should have been. Mangling the release of a new SimCity will do that to you.
YES!!! Yay!!! Yes Virginia! There IS a Santa Clause!!!!!
Ok not to be a negative ninny but I want to see what other demon’s, I mean executives EA has in mind to replace John before I break out the “good wine”.