Does Electronic Arts Need a Change in Leadership?

Electronic Arts has been in the news very often lately, and not for any good reasons. Their Stock is declining, they are losing equity, every move they make receives backlash from the community, and the latest being this mishap with SimCity. All of these occurrences have happened with very little comments from the senior management of the company. I cannot say if this is because they cannot get in front of these stories and explain themselves, or it they will not come out and address these issues. All I know is what I see and read. What I have seen lately is a company that is blindly making decisions. Are they doing market research with some of these decisions? I believe Electronic Arts is a company trying to guide itself though this extremely tough industry in this even tougher economy. I am not seeing any leadership or accountability. Does Electronic Arts need a change in leadership? If it were my company, I would say, absolutely!


Update 3-18-2013
EA CEO John Riccitello has resigned

A response to David Cage's Dice Summit 2013 speech

Today, February 6th, 2013 - David Cage gave a speech at the 2013 Dice Summit. I was not present for the speech. I would also like to preface this response with the fact that I have played none of his games. The article where I received a paraphrasing of Cage's speech can be found at this link.

There are some points where I believe Cage is correct in his assessment and reasoning. There are other where I believe that he is misguided. That is not to say that his opinions are wrong, or invalid. I probably just done see the issues from the same perspective that Cage does. In his speech, I have been lead to understand that he gave 9 things that he feels that our industry needs to change. I would like to address each one and give my perspective on each.

1. Cage says we should "make games for all audiences:

 I can agree with this idea if I am interpreting it the way I believe he means it. If Cage means that we should makes games that adults can enjoy without compromising what we love about the industry. What I hope he does not mean is the over-simplification of games that are meant for specific audiences. To be clear I will give the example of Dragon Age. I choose this game because it is the freshest example in my mind. The reason that I loved Dragon Age: Origins(DAO) was because it was a game filled with things that I needed to learn. The game could be played with a surface understanding of the games combat and battle systems. However, my enjoyment and ultimate love for the game came on my third play-through when I had fully learned all that that game had to offer as far as combat and combat systems were concerned. Dragon Age 2, however, attempted to "streamline" much of the combat and the systems therein. Some people loved it. I hated it. Now that is my opinion. I would elaborate on that point but that is not the purpose of this post. There are many of BioWare's fans who share my sentiment of the second entry in the Dragon Age series. I hope that this is not what Cage meant by making games for all audiences.

2. We must change paradigms:

With this point I can agree as well. As an industry, we need more ideas than a main character with a gun. I disagree with where he places the blame. I do not believe that it is the game designers that are responsible with our gun fetish within the industry. Way back when, there used to be many games and paradigms. Then Doom happened and there were gun games all over the place. Suddenly all those great gaming ideas and paradigms are swept to the side to make shelf space for something that is going to make a company some major cash. I am sure that game designers would take many risks in making different and innovative games, but they also have families and mouths to feed. Since development and the costs of doing business have risen tremendously you need the backing of major companies to even get a product to the market. Digital distribution and indie games are working to change the face of our industry. To Cage I say be patient. Indie may be here to save the day.

3. The importance of meaning:

I completely agree. Rarely do I play a game that has a message, or something of note to say. I believe that this is where games fall short of being called art. Another argument for another time perhaps. That is not to say that games with messages do not exist. A few come to mind, but not enough.

4. Become Accessible:

Yet another good point. No comment.

5. Bring other talents on board:

There are a few examples of games diving into the talent pools of Hollywood  Games like The Force Unleashed, Mass Effect, and various Elder Scrolls games come to mind. However, I do not believe that we need Hollywood or Motown (or some other musically renowned city. I could not think of others) to make our games better. The industry already has a wealth of actors and creative people to pull from. The problem is that our industry is not a cauldron of creation. If we allow our creator to create, our industry will soar to new heights.

6. Need to establish new relationships with Hollywood:

I have already said my piece on Hollywood. Although we are working with many talents from the film mediums. And not just the actors. Guillermo Del Toro is currently looking for a new home for a game he is creating, is he not? An academy award winning writer and director wrote the script for Modern Warfare 3. Just saying.

7. Changing our relationship with censorship:

I see the issue that cage has with censorship. On the other hand, another reason that censorship plays a role in what developers would like to create is because they need to sell their product on store shelves. I would not blame all of the censorship issues on 'what you can and cannot do in a game' and also look to the point that you need to maintain a certain level of maturity in your game. AO rated games do not sell as well as M rated games.

8. The role of press:

Press is important. Cage's issues lay with the roles of game critics. I can see either side of this point. Game critics are filters and signalers to consumers. In a research project, I tested this idea. In short, I found that game critics only impact a games sales by about +-5%. That is not a huge impact, but it does show that they have some power. I would like to rerun that hypothesis with some better data(EEDAR, I am talking to you), however, I think the results would be about the same. I am not sure what kind of analysis that Cage expects from critics. Feedback, perhaps? Look to your community for that information if that is what you need.

9. The importance of gamers:

Excellent closing point.

I would love the opportunity to sit with David Cage and get some clarification on some of these points. I think me and David see eye to eye on the state of the industry as a whole. Its just the fine details where we differ. If you would like to read my econometrics research project send me an email at CAR52@uakron.edu and I would be glad to send you the PDF. EEDAR?

Message for David Cage:
Dave,

Can I call you Dave? I will be at PAX East this year and would love to buy you a coffee. (Hint Hint, Wink Wink)

Violent Video Games and Parents

I have a serious problem with all the talk, news, and Facebook posts that I have been seeing since the school shootings that happened in Connecticut. What happened there was a true tragedy and some measures should be taken to prevent anything like that from happening again. I am not sure what form these measures should take but I do know that violent video games are not fully to blame. Do they have some fault in these tragedies? Perhaps, that remains to be seen. However, there is a much larger, much more liable party that is to blame. PARENTS. Parents who buy their children these violent video games are to blame.

Every video games comes with a label at the bottom of the package that clearly specifies what audience a game is meant for. Furthermore, there is an explanation of why that game received its rating on the back of the packaging. So, when I am online playing a mature (17+) rated games and I hear a small child on the other end of a microphone, I become infuriated. Especially when you can tell that they are below 13. Children that young should not be playing mature rated games such as Call of Duty, Halo, Far Cry, etc. The industry is a self governing entity when it comes to the sales of these video games. To this day, I am carded every time I attempt to purchase a mature rated video game and I am 24 years old. Therefore, these children are obtaining mature rated video games with their parents aid. This is not the game industries fault. This is the fault of parents. I am not saying that it is because they do not care about what their kids are playing. However, I am saying that they are ignorant of what they are buying their children. The need to take a real hard look at the labels that are clearly printed on these products and make the judgment call on whether their child can handle it.

So parents, if you are reading this and you would like more information on the ESRB ratings, please follow the link below:

http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

Otherwise, Stop buying children violent video games!!

The Next Generation of Games systems

This is a very broad topic and I made it this way because there are two topics that I would like to touch upon.

Rumors of there being no optical drives:

It truly seems that digital distribution is catching like a wildfire in our community. I have a Steam account and I enjoy it. Particularly, because of how easy it is to use and the sales that they have constantly are amazing. That being said, there is still something about having that tangible box in your hand that I wish to cling to. I believe that this is because I truly feel like I own an item if I have it, whereas if I receive it via digital download I feel like I merely have access to it. The point I want to make is that digital download is awesome, convenient, and keeps me from selling my game back (more on this later). Being from the generation that I am from, I may speak for a majority of us when I say that we are not willing to have all things digital, not yet. We still see value in tangible goods.

 Another reason why I believe optical drives are still necessary is because of ISPs and the possibility of many of them moving to a data capping model. I am not well versed on the subject, but I have heard about it. If this data capping trend were to catch on and our next-gen console had no optical drives, you could expect that consumers would have a hard time supporting the next generation on consoles. Data cap limits could severely limit how much gamers could consume the games they would like to play. Especially in the fall months where there seem to be many major releases. It would seem that if the next-gen consoles had no optical drives then these console would make it hard for consumers to consume by design. I severely hope that our console creators have more sense than that. You would want to have a product that makes it easy for your customers to consume more of your products not the other way around.

In conclusion to this topic, the idea of having consoles with no optical drives would be a cost saving idea, however, it is not a very practical one.

Used games: Could the next generation of console successfully deal with this problem:

This topic was triggered by this article by Chis Morris on GameIndustry International.  He believes that Used games are going to be a part of the industry for the foreseeable future. I am inclined to agree with him. As a community we have again and again proved that we are "persistent and capable" of breaking down any walls that they try and put in front of us. I do not condone piracy, but I do understand it. Games are expensive and incredibly so during this economic time period. If I can save my self $60 and borrow a game from a friend I am going to do it. If you make that impossible for gamers to do, there are some who will find other ways to consumer the product without giving the publisher or developers a dime. So how can you keep used games in the industry and make some change on the side? EA's "project $10" does just that. It allow consumer to acquire secondhand games however some of the content is locked unless you pay a small fee. Personally, I think $10 is a little steep, but I applaud EA's efforts (I cant believe I am doing this) to work with a situation that is not going away rather than try to squash it like Capcom did with their Resident Evil DS product.

I apologize if you believe this article is a little disorganized and approaches a few tangents. Comments are appreciated. Next week I may write an article about EA. How they are closing servers of some games(I know I am late on this but I think it is important for me to discuss) and How I believe they are quickly becoming the industries evil empire.

A little about myself

My name is Christopher Robinson. Friends call me Crobin or C-rob. Choose from any of those if you would like. I am an economics undergrad student close to graduation from a state university in Northeastern Ohio. I have minor in philosophy and business administration.

Ever since I was young I have loved video games and they have been a very large part of my life. I cannot imagine my life without them. That being said I am an extremely passionate gamer that has very strong opinions about the industry. I do have a group of friends that I can discuss the latest with, however, I would like to pick the brains of those of the internet. I hope to meet people of different perspectives so that I can learn, grow, and become wiser. People of all backgrounds, opinions, and various levels of passion are welcome to comment on my posts. I promise that I will read them. I can not promise that I will write back. I have school work too, you know.

My aim with this blog is to find a big story, hopefully every week, and publish my opinion on the subject. I may have some special edition posts where I publish my opinion on some interesting conversation topic that came up in the course of my life. This is my first blog, bear with me. As I said I study economics, not English, so don't ding me to bad on my grammar. Although constructive criticism is welcome.