EA CEO John Riccitiello resigns

ShaneU

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=749234

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.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some statements set forth in this release, including the information relating to EA's fourth quarter fiscal year 2013 expectations under the heading "Business Outlook", contain forward-looking statements that are subject to change. Statements including words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are preliminary estimates and expectations based on current information and are subject to business and economic risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from the expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements.

Some of the factors which could cause the Company's results to differ materially from its expectations include the following: sales of the Company's titles; the Company's ability to manage expenses; the competition in the interactive entertainment industry; the effectiveness of the Company's sales and marketing programs; timely development and release of Electronic Arts' products; the Company's ability to realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions, including the PopCap acquisition; the consumer demand for, and the availability of an adequate supply of console hardware units; the Company's ability to predict consumer preferences among competing platforms; the Company's ability to service and support digital product offerings, including managing online security; general economic conditions; and other factors described in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2012.

Electronic Arts assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. In addition, the preliminary financial results set forth in this release are estimates based on information currently available to Electronic Arts.

While Electronic Arts believes these estimates are meaningful, they could differ from the actual amounts that Electronic Arts ultimately reports in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013. Electronic Arts assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these estimates prior to reporting its actual financial results for the fiscal year.

"A few years ago. the game you bought was the game you got" John Riccitiello, saying that like it was a bad thing.

I'm sure the next CEO will have the consumer's interests at heart and bring lots of new IP's with no content held back for Day One DLC, no online passes or microtransactions :pac:

ShadowHearth

There is god after all. Finally he got kicked out. He can now play all multiplayer games solo!

I wonder if EA stock will go up now!

omerin

There will be no change, DLC is a cash cow for these companies and the next CEO wont change this. He (or highly unlikely she) will be the CEO of a corporation not the SVP

ShaneU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6-u8OIJTE

ShadowHearth

omerin wrote: »

There will be no change, DLC is a cash cow for these companies and the next CEO wont change this. He (or highly unlikely she) will be the CEO of a corporation not the SVP

Well I would take a small chance of some sort of change to better then having that clown still there. I think you can't get any worse as it is now, though EA always manages to surprise us!

calex71

Nothing will change as long as people keep supporting the practice by buying day one DLC etc. and playing EA Games.

pixelburp

Good to see him leave the company, he's clearly one element of what's wrong with gaming as a hobby & industry, but ultimately it's down to the consumers to start voting with their wallets, and stop rewarding companies for their gouging tactics. They'll stop the moment we stop.

degrassinoel

EA do publish some really decent games though.

Better the devil you know, cant imagine the next CEO being as open about his plans as he was. Not condoning his strategy, but hey, at least he was upfront about it. The next CEO wont be if he has any sense.

cherryghost

Looks like he left just in time, Origin has been exploited

gizmo

While I'm quite interested to see who follows Riccitiello and how or even if the company direction changes, I do feel that people are forgetting what he accomplished when he came on board. It was the pre-Riccitiello years where EA really got their name as the Evil Empire yet following his appointment as CEO we saw new IPs like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space and Dragon Age released, John Carmack who had previously showed nothing but disdain for the company signed up to the EA Partners scheme for RAGE, employee conditions improved and there was an end to the rather miserable EA Spouse saga and they finally entered the area of digital distribution with Origin.

Unfortunately things have been going rather south lately and while he's certainly not to blame for all of it, at least he's made the right decision to stand down now before any more damage is done. In the grand scheme of things however, he's far from the worst executive in the industry right now.

cherryghost wrote: »

Looks like he left just in time, Origin has been exploited

Potentially exploited, pretty much the same thing happened on Steam last October.

Monty - the one and only

cherryghost wrote: »

Looks like he left just in time, Origin has been exploited

That explains the origin update last night.... but as to the topic on hand...as long as the next ceo doesn't suggest abandoning pc's, I'm good.

VinLieger

Monty - the one and only wrote: »

That explains the origin update last night.... but as to the topic on hand...as long as the next ceo doesn't suggest abandoning pc's, I'm good.

Meh wouldnt be that bad a thing, the vast majority of PC games i own now are either old classics on steam or awesome indies on steam, if EA left the platform it wouldnt be a massive kick in the teeth to many PC gamers i would imagine

Otacon

gizmo wrote: »

While I'm quite interested to see who follows Riccitiello

Peter Moore probably.

Monty - the one and only

VinLieger wrote: »

Meh wouldnt be that bad a thing, the vast majority of PC games i own now are either old classics on steam or awesome indies on steam, if EA left the platform it wouldnt be a massive kick in the teeth to many PC gamers i would imagine

Possibly not initially, but the chain reactions of other publishers following suite wouldn't be pretty

VinLieger

Otacon wrote: »

Peter Moore probably.

He is as an interim for the moment, until they find a permanent replacement

gizmo

VinLieger wrote: »

Meh wouldnt be that bad a thing, the vast majority of PC games i own now are either old classics on steam or awesome indies on steam, if EA left the platform it wouldnt be a massive kick in the teeth to many PC gamers i would imagine

Those of us who don't lack such foresight would probably prefer that there's as much competition on the digital side of things as possible.

Deano7788

VinLieger wrote: »

He is as an interim for the moment, until they find a permanent replacement

Larry Probst is the interim replacement. Moore is being heavily linked with the permanent position.

VinLieger

Deano7788 wrote: »

Larry Probst is the interim replacement. Moore is being heavily linked with the permanent position.

My mistake, that makes alot more sense

_Puma_

gizmo wrote: »

While I'm quite interested to see who follows Riccitiello and how or even if the company direction changes, I do feel that people are forgetting what he accomplished when he came on board. It was the pre-Riccitiello years where EA really got their name as the Evil Empire yet following his appointment as CEO we saw new IPs like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space and Dragon Age released, John Carmack who had previously showed nothing but disdain for the company signed up to the EA Partners scheme for RAGE, employee conditions improved and there was an end to the rather miserable EA Spouse saga and they finally entered the area of digital distribution with Origin.

Unfortunately things have been going rather south lately and while he's certainly not to blame for all of it, at least he's made the right decision to stand down now before any more damage is done. In the grand scheme of things however, he's far from the worst executive in the industry right now.

Could be argued that most of these were in the final stages of production when he came on board and he might have had little input into them before they were released in 2008. The decision to create the new IP's would have been made before he came on board in 2007.

Nice balanced article from Eurogamer.

gizmo

_Puma_ wrote: »

Could be argued that most of these were in the final stages of production when he came on board and he might have had little input into them before they were released in 2008. The decision to create the new IP's would have been made before he came on board in 2007.

Nice balanced article from Eurogamer.

Aye, I saw the Eurogamer and piece while I agree it's nicely done, I was confused at the "final stages of development" point. Riccitiello came onboard in Feb 2007, those games weren't released until the tail end of 2008 which, while obvious that he wasn't in charge during their initial greenlighting, would have left plenty of time for them to have had, how shall I put this, their appeal broadened based on communication from the top.

I should also point out that outside of the internal studios releasing the above games, they also launched the EA Partners initiative and published a bunch of solid and/or creative titles whether they were larger on such as Bulletstorm, Brutal Legend, Shadows of the Damned and Kingdoms of Amalur or smaller digital titles like Gatling Gears, Shank and Warp.

ShadowHearth

gizmo wrote: »

Those of us who don't lack such foresight would probably prefer that there's as much competition on the digital side of things as possible.

True. As much as I LOVE steam, i would hate to see it as Monopoly. Prices on Steam already crap for us ( non sale ones ) and imagine if steam will be the one to call the shots! Though i do know a lot of pricing was pressure from Brick and mortar shops on publishers/developers.

richymcdermott

Def not as bad as bobby kotick