John-riccitiello posts

It's sort of a fact of life that the gaming business has a huge flood of licensed games that nobody ever really plays seriously. Most gamers live with it. EA, however, is stamping their foot down on this cultural phenomenon of bad licensed games. In a recent interview with MTV Multiplayer, it was revealed that EA is moving away from licenses and more to intellectual properties. Here's what their always vocal CEO John Riccitello had to say:

"I don't actually believe EA is in the business of exploiting other people's licenses with bad quality games. We've been there. Most of our competitors are there or have been there. That's not what we do. We're not really after that market. Now Metacritic isn't always the best quality measure for some licensed games, but I know a good game when I see it. My team and our developers know a good game when we see it."

If true, this bodes well for EA. They have never had the best of licensed games. For the full interview, as well as more thoughts on EA in general, head on over to MTV Multiplayer.

E3 sure ain't what it used to be. At least that's what EA CEO John Riccitiello thinks. "I hate E3 like this. Either we need to go back to the old E3, or we'll have to have our own private events."

He's not the only one who doesn't care for the "new and improved" E3 Media and Business Summit format. Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc was harsher: "E3 this year is terrible. The world used to come to E3. Now it's like a pipe-fitters show in the basement."

A pipe-fitters show? Ouch. Approximately 5,000 people were expected to attend this year's E3 at the LA Convention Center. Back in its glory years E3 drew 60,000 people. Ouch.

Mike Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, admitted that they need to figure out "where the dial needs to go" and they'll continue to work on the format as needed.

In an interview with business site Portfolio.com, Electronic Arts executive John Riccitello confirmed that an MMO based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is in development.

Talking about EA's portfolio of upcoming titles, Riccitello said: "We've got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development, [Warhammer Online and] the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about -- in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it." When Portfolio asked for clarification that he's talking about the KotOR IP, he said "yes."

At this point it's hardly a surprise, as the trademark has already been registered and hints have been dropped, but a confirmation is a welcome thing. Essentially, the industry's worst-kept and most popular secret is a secret no longer!

[Via Massively]