Riccitiello: "quality of EA games up sharply"

EA CEO John Riccitiello believes that the quality of EA games has risen sharply since he began his reign according to comments in The Mercury News.

Riccitiello believes that, while EA used to have a reputation for rushed games and endless sequels or NFL licenses, that has changed since he took over thanks to games like Spore, Battlefield: Bad Company, Mercenaries 2, Crysis and the latest Command and Conquer games.

Buying up developers like BioWare and Pandemic can't have hurt either, we imagine.

"A lot of people in our industry get stuck thinking that their job is to manage a lot of business process, and somehow the games happen down in the trenches. I'm trying to actually get it shifted, so people understand that the most important thing in our company is where the programming, the art direction, the game design and production takes place," Riccitiello told the Mercury News.

"Ultimately, if we do that, we'll make the best games. If we make the best games, they'll sell really well, and we'll be really profitable.

"Our game quality and level of innovation is up sharply when you look at recently released titles and then you look at what's on the roadmap. We've turned the corner on that issue, and I'm very proud of that," he said.

Riccitiello goes on to say that he made the wrong choice when deciding that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 would be the market leaders, but that the increased emphasis on Wii, DS and PC games will make up for that as the company approaches Q4.

What do you reckon to EA and the recent history of the mega-publisher? Let us know what you think in the forums.

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