EA: Quality Not Quantity, But We Can Change That

EA made a bunch of new games. Reviewers wet themselves over all the innovation. Gamers went “hmm, looks a bit crap tbh”. The games didn’t sell as well as they should.

Cue John Riccitiello, CEO of EA. He told investors that although EA sold fewer units than expected, the reviewers liked them.

While we saw significant improvement in the overall quality of our key products this year, that quality has not yet translated into enough sales. So far in calendar 08 we have shipped 17 titles with Metacritic scores of 80 or above versus seven this time last year. Quality is a prerequisite for a great selling game – but it is not the entire equation.

Perhaps the reviews are crap? Or maybe I just haven’t had enough sleep and I’m cranky. Either way, Riccitiello continued.

We did manage to put quality and innovation on the board, and we’re very proud of that. Many times, what happens with a new intellectual property is the first edition doesn’t generate the units that subsequent editions can generate

I can’t fault him on the observation that sequels often do much better. The name of the game is out there and people expect the quality of the game to be a step up from its predecessor. Putting innovation on the table though? I had no idea it was that calculated. “We’ve put 3 innovations in this game, its sequel should sell well”.

We’re very pleased with a lot of our new franchises this year. We think Spore has established a strong base for being an ongoing franchise, we think the same of MySims, Dead Space looks like a long term big winner for us [...]

Mirror’s Edge is one that was very strongly reviewed. That one’s going to go forward, we’ll probably be looking at some issues around the design to make sure that a strong IP is married to a strong business,

Regarding his last sentence about Mirror’s Edge; I wonder what he means by “married to a strong business”. Are EA going in at the ground floor, telling their developers to actually build in design features, all to generate cash?

Mirror’s Edge 2 to be third person with DLC shoes and t-shirts, confirmed.