John Riccitiello Has Earned a Little Respect

By: Derek Yu

On: July 11th, 2007

“We’re boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play,” [EA Games CEO] Mr. Riccitiello said in an interview.

Good on you, Chief! Now if we can just get him to say that he touches himself while he plays Cave Story…

(Source: Indygamer)

Posted in Community, Developers

crackers

Unless he touches other people.
RvLeshrac

But… the games he cites are in no way “innovative”!

World of Warcraft? There were plenty of “casual” MMOs before WoW, just not with the same visual style.

Guitar Hero? Rock Band? Anyone heard of those little things called Beatmania/IIDX/III, Drummania, Guitarfreaks, Pop ‘n Music, DDR, Karaoke Revolution, Dance Maniax, Keyboardmania, or ParaParaParadise? Rock Band doesn’t even introduce the world to the “play a bunch of different rhythm games linked together” concept, as Keyboardmania, Guitarfreaks, and Drummania can be linked together. Drummania home versions can even be played with Yamaha drum kits!

Further, one of the problems with gaming of late is that games are being “dumbed down.” There’s nothing wrong with pick-up-and-play games, but developers seem to equate simple design with handing everything to the player on a platter. I know many people who paid full price for Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, never managed to complete them, and still remember them fondly. Most of the same people don’t play anything more complex than match-3 games now, but I can sit them in front of Galaga or Ms. Pac-Man and they’ll play for hours even when ‘losing’ horribly!

The answer isn’t dumbing down the gameplay mechanics or difficulty level, the answer is making them more approachable from the start – most people don’t CARE about actually completing the game – they just care about having fun while playing it.
RvLeshrac

Oh, I suppose I should note that the above isn’t an attack on WoW (though I don’t like it), Guitar Hero (love it), or Rock Band (man, that’s a lot of cash). You know, before the flaming starts.

I just wouldn’t hold them up as anything approaching “innovative” in design.
http://www.g4g.it FireSword

Riccitiello is an italian surname.. hey i am italian. ;)

The game i am playing now is Ufo:Afterlight a great game based on the legendary Microprose’s X-COM.

The problem is not that they are hard to play, the problem is that it is always the same crap.. (and is not good-crafted) haha

Peace. and..
Un saluto a tutti.. ;P
Melly

Well, considering most of what EA sold were repackaged sport games year after year (which I hate with a burning passion, including their players) with little difference in between, I guess they’re still taking baby steps into innovation. Better not show them something like Shadow of the Colossus. It might blow their heads apart.
PHeMoX

EA games, yeah, a well…

Next!

(it’s too damn bad EA is buying all these smaller companies like Westwood aaargh!!)
Max

Bros:
I am interning this summer as an assistant producer at EA on LMNO.

They make all us interns attend speaker series events. John Riccitello is our final speaker. I am burning him a copy of cave story as I speak. Err… type.
Oddity

*”Well, it’ll only sell a hundred thousand copies, but it’ll get Will off our backs.”*

–An EA executive, commenting on The Sims