Riccitiello: Focusing on 3D makes for 'poor returns'

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jul 29th 2011 11:00AM

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has plenty to worry about at present, but a future full of 3D displays isn't one of them. VentureBeat reports that at EA's recent shareholder meeting, the executive responded to an inquiry about stereoscopic 3D games by saying, "We have not seen a big uptake for 3D gaming. We have not seen a big uptake in 3D TVs in the home. We are not here trying to drive a market. We are here to react to what consumers want."

And consumers don't appear to be demanding the tech -- evidenced by Nintendo's financial report yesterday, accompanied by an announcement of a significant price reduction of its 3D handheld.

Riccitiello said EA will continue focusing on mobile, social and online. Those are markets where they are seeing "really high returns," compared to the "very poor returns focusing on 3D."

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EA's Riccitiello: Fail well and learn from it

by David Hinkle on May 24th 2011 9:05AM

EA CEO John Riccitiello may not have succeeded as grandly as he sought to during this generation, but he's certainly not lacking in vision. EA has seen tremendous growth in its digital business and while Riccitiello admits his company "dropped the ball" at the beginning of the cycle, he sees every failure as an opportunity.

During his commencement speech at the Haas Business School at the University of California at Berkeley -- of which he is an alumni -- Riccitiello said that his many failures over the last four years have helped him to learn and grow. According to Venture Beat, he attributes the Haas school's "students always" mentality, of learning from every failure as a way to set yourself up for greater success, as a big motivator in those dark times.

"Everyone falls down. Everyone loses a game or gets a bad grade," he said. "We had to do these three hard things when the press and the financial analysts told us we were crazy -- that the cutting was great, but the investment in digital was just not a good idea. It proved very hard to hear the negative drumbeat while tackling very hard challenges at work." Riccitiello said he "failed well."

"We are students of our own failure," he concluded. "We used our failure to shape and impel us to a better strategy. One that we believe will ultimately succeed in ways that our previous strategy, even if perfectly executed, could never have done."

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Riccitiello: EA 'dropped the ball' at the start of this gen

by David Hinkle on Feb 17th 2011 10:30PM

EA boss John Riccitiello spoke at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this week (via GI.biz), stating that EA "dropped the ball" during the transition from the previous console generation to this one. "Our IP deteriorated, our costs went up, and we didn't really have an answer for the rise of digital."

Over the last three years, it's been "part turnaround, part transformation" at EA, Riccitiello said. This initiative has seen the publisher cut its yearly slate of titles in half, reduce costs internally and ramp up its digital business -- a $700 million cash cow in 2010 for EA.

Finally, Riccitiello talked Star Wars: The Old Republic, which he hoped would take "a big chunk" of the World of Warcraft userbase. As we've heard before, it needs at least 500,000 subscribers to turn a profit, but many more to be considered a breakout success. "We want to take a share; we want a leadership position here. And our product is innovative in a number of ways."

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