EA CEO Upset by Poor Review Scores

John Riccitiello, head honcho of Electronic Arts, finds EA's performance as indicated by review scores unacceptable.

Electronic Art's Chief Financial Officer has a record of being outspoken about improving the quality of his company's products. So when he discovered that the average Metacritic ranking of EA games fell from 2006's 75 (out of 100) to last year's 72 rating, Riccitiello had explaining to do.

"There is nothing acceptable about that," said Riccitiello to a group of analysts. "Our core game titles are accurately measured and summarized by these assessments, and that is a very big deal."

Metacritic founder Marc Doyle didn't plan on building an influential game review aggregator, but understands the role that critics' scores can have on game sales.

Doyle detailed, "We never created Metacritic as an industry kind of thing. It was always for educating the user. ... For a movie it's going to cost you 10 to 12 bucks and it's a two-hour investment of your time. Whether critics like it is not a huge deal. But a game costs $60 and 20 to 30 hours of your life, so you want to know ahead of time whether a game is good."

Despite his concerns, Riccitiello is cautious about injecting corporate advisory over the development teams. "The process often gets in the way more than it helps. That sort of circus has unfortunately sort of defined our company for too long. And it's not a good process."

Plus, Electronic Arts continues to perform well financially. He slid in the summarizing remark, "You don't cash Metacritic, you cash checks."

Source: Reuters

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I originally saw this being broadcast all over Games Revolution.

EA are beginning to scare me. They stand up against FOX, admit to declining standards and now actually are paying attention to (albeit almost tiny) drops in critical scoring from independent journalists? What the bloody Hell is going on!? Where is the overly positive image they once gave out!? Gah!

Alright EA; we realise that you've just made cash-ins for the past half a decade; Its great that you admit it. But please stop moaning and get on with giving us quality, kay?

"Feel sorry for us, we screwed up studios we took over and our average gaming ratings slipped. But we're still cashing in!"

That's what I get from that statement from them. That last comment made me feel that they don't really care about the quality of their games as long as the masses are buying them.

I, for one, welcome these new EA overlords who actually care enough to at least pretend to care about critical reception, shrinking talent pools, and overreliance on retreads. And who knows, maybe it's even sincere.

-- Steve

argh, mouse-skip. content deleted by authour.

I guess it takes more money to buy reviews nowadays.

kingston:
I guess it takes more money to buy reviews nowadays.

Yep, like knowing that it takes a good game that actually accomplishes what it advertises. I know a lot of game devs are trying to extend the length of their games to those 20-30 hours but some games being put in a simple format at a really cheap cost can make millions just for being 3-4 hours long. Portal being the shining example of course but as long as the developers and marketing department just let the games know what they are going to get then the game can be simply judged a lot better.

I sit down and play donkey kong on my NES or an altered best for the Genesis I know that I'm only getting about 1 hour to 2 hours playtime at most with replaying stages over and over at higher difficulties but it is fun and entertaining cause I know what I'm getting. At times I don't need the same type of game but to be 20-30 hours long in the form of a FPS to have the same entertainment value.

To be fair - The CEO has to deal with EA as a business, not just as a content provider. He is rephrasing a very popular saying in most businesses. (You don't take percentage's to the bank). I've heard it a bunch of different ways. I don't believe it is fair to decry him for making his company profit, I do believe it fair of us to decry him if he isn't spreading that success to the people who ultimately make it happen. Monetary victories for EA are good insofar as they are also monetary wins for the developers and coders and individual people who make up EA.

I can't really jump on the hate EA bandwagon. Every company out there is made up of people, none of whom have risen to the top through stupidity. It really doesn't work that way. They have to deal with the business realities of investment commerce and have to be able to make choices that aren't the ones they'd like to make, but are the ones that their tools (which will generally be the best that can be made available to them) project as the correct course. EA would likely have produced several more Fantastic never-forgettable games had it let a few gut feelings go by, but the person who made that choice would just as likely be sacked for the 15 others that didn't pan out financially.

I'd rather see an improvement in quality and the such and see fewer games. I can respect something a lot more when it's quality and someone's spent some serious time on it.

I think this is a good thing for him to say. EA has always been making money on their games whether or not they're rated well. It's probably a good thing that he still wants to make them high quality.

I can just see John Riticello on the phone to Gamespot

"So I see our product scores have been quite low lately"
"Yes...well that happens"
"Yes...things do happen don't they. How's your wife Therese?"
"How do you....?"
*muffled female screams*
"I should very much like to see some improved scores"
"I....understand"

It is interesting how he's said that he understands the financial pressures can get to dev teams, but what he says in public and what he does in private may be two different things. Oh well, more Sims expansion packs! Wheeeeee!

I don't know whether to believe that he's being honest, and therefore be impressed that he actually cares about the game scores... or believe that this is just another PR stunt by a megalithic corporate giant.

Nothing below 80-85% avg SHOULD be good enough.

I dunno. EA's games should be unique and interesting. Not the same fucking game every year. Skip on the sports titles and the Need For Speed series for 2-3 years, then get to making them again. If Need For Speed Pro Street and Carbon taught us anything, it is never retread every year. That would be like making mario galaxy every bloody year. Their games should be an 80 percent average overall.

Okay, I have to take issue with these last couple of points. Just a little bit.

Review scores are important to publishers. They're a fantastic marketing tool that can be plastered all over packaging, in magazines, online, pretty much wherever. Great attention-getters. But it's a mistake to consider them an iron-clad descriptor of quality, and it's an even bigger mistake to assume the magic "80" represents some kind of watershed upon which a game succeeds or fails.

Dig it:

Divine Divinity - scored an 81, just over the mark, while its sequel Beyond Divinity rang up a 73
Bad Mojo - the cockroach game, dontcha know, scored a 74
Moonbase Commander, which you've probably never even heard of, got 77
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, so close but not quite there, with a 79, and Path of the Shell got 72
Arx Fatalis - this is particularly appalling, 77 on Metacritic
Shadowgrounds - even worse, a 74
Another World - that's the 15th anniversary edition, not the original, and it only got 75 - this is real wtf territory
Titan Quest - got another 77 here
UFO: Aftermath - a frikkin' 67!

So the point, and yes, there is one: Each of these games is outstanding in its own right, perhaps flawed, perhaps unconventional, but all well worth playing. You're really shortchanging yourself if you turn your back on games like these because they didn't hit some arbitrary average review score.

With regards to the original post, I'd rather see publishers take a few more chances. Rather than sweating quite so much about review scores, I'd rather hear Riccitiello say EA is throwing some money at a few indie devs who are working on some entirely new and original IP. I'm not suggesting they give up on their core competencies - keep on cranking out that EA Sports shit if it's making you money - but I would love to see a greater interest in the games themselves, rather than in how they're perceived and presented by mainstream review sites.

Review numbers tend to be worth very little. It's a number. When was the last time you looked up from a game you'd been enjoying for a couple hours, and realized the sun was rising... and said "Ok, that's 93 fun right there." Or eaten an apple pie and gone "That's totally 75%!" Which would be 3/4 stars.

Any time I'm curious about a game, I read three reviews. One high, one low, one neutral. I don't care much what the numbers are, I'm just trying to find someone who'll tell me what didn't work very well, what worked decently, and what it's really about, since the advertising blurb on the box generally resembles the actual product like the signs at a fast food place.

I know my tastes. I know what I've played, and I know what really thoroughly tanks. I read a ton of really bad reviews of "Vampire Rain". And every one of them compared it to spec ops games. None compared it to survival horror. And it is camp horror sneaking... with appropriately crap translation. For someone who finds such things amusing, it's a pretty interesting game. I'm never going to find a review that fits my tastes.

DannyboyO1:
Review numbers tend to be worth very little.

Unfortunately, while review scores may translate into only a vague and unreliable indication of quality, it's the only concrete indication that a game has until well after release. And they are influential on game sales, especially sales to the more casual fans.

The problem that EA is trying to address is that, in addition to consumer sales, purchase orders (and re-orders) from retailers are often influenced by review scores, as is the amount of promotion and shelf space that a game will receive after release. Sure, half the people on this site might claim that the scores mean nothing, but that's definitely not the case.

Bonuses to game developers are frequently tied to review scores as well, though this is something EA is less likely to care about (but probably more likely to implement).

Hopefully, no one at EA is surprised by earning poor scores for endless re-hashes. The first rule of programming is "garbage in, garbage out.; bad games get bad scores. Perhaps EA is turning a corner, though. This, combined with the direction that I've heard ex-Microsoftie Peter Moore is trying to take EA, gives me hope that we can look forward to higher quality games from EA in the future.

How dare those awful game critics give bad scores to our crappy rehashed games? I know what to do, let's shell out millions in ad money to Gamespot then threaten to withdraw it if they don't give us good reviews!

A quick checks on Wikipedia...

EA published about 21 games in 2007 (checking an apparently incomplete list: source) and about 16 of those titles were sequels in one form or another.

Well there's ya problem right there. People are tired of the same thing being fed to them again and again... and again and again and again...

doughnut:
A quick checks on Wikipedia...

EA published about 21 games in 2007 (checking an apparently incomplete list: source) and about 16 of those titles were sequels in one form or another.

Well there's ya problem right there. People are tired of the same thing being fed to them again and again... and again and again and again...

Ah the EA strategy as Yahtzee has pointed out. I would say something about this, but I dont think I own a single EA game.

I take Riccitiello's remarks as a positive for EA, not a negative. As someone who is always careful about spending money on over-hyped, under-achieving games, I take reviews very seriously. Usually (GTA IV aside, which I pre-ordered months ago) I don't buy a game until I've put considerable thought into it, or played the demo (and was subsequently blown away).

However, I know better than to use a single source for a review, and that's what Metacritic does. Which is exactly what Doyle stated is its purpose, to educate the community. But of course it's going to dis/persuade people. If Madden 08 gets a 50%, only hardcore Madden fans are going to buy the game, but if it averages a 95%, then people like myself will be more likely to purchase it.

But that's not the reviewers fault, that's the fault of the people developing the game. Put some thought and effort into it, instead of rehashing the same old BS, and maybe you'll earna better score. How many games has EA taken over and ruined (Earth & Beyond comes to mind) and how many franchises are they simply floating by with (Most of their sports titles).

Now, the whole 'Kane and Lynch' fiasco is another thing altogether. If publishers/developers (or the sites themselves) are going to punish reviewers for being harsh, that's where I take great offense. When reviews stop being subjective, the scores stop being meaningful. If Kane and Lynch sucks, I want to know. I don't want some bobbley talking corporate mouth spewing of glowing reviews just because his job depends on it.

Of course, there are always going to be games that score a 70% which I think should have gotten a 95% (X3, for instance) and games that got a 95% (or better, and won game of the year awards) that I wouldn't pay a nickel for just to have 5 minutes of the same old FPS crap labeled 'new' and 'inventive' and 'original' blah blah blah (Bioshock, if you couldn't guess). And that's why subjectiveness is important. But in general, if a game is a 95%, it's usually pretty appealing to the masses, and a 70% more of a niche game (or a bit above average). And 60% or lower, and you're probably looking at only a hardcore fanboy purchase, or a coaster.

Educating the consumer is important. Just like crash tests on vehicles, game reviews stop us from investing our hard earned money into a piece of crap game that we otherwise could have avoided.

mitsoxfan:
everything that makes sense with game reviews

Need I say more?

yeah that, and almost no one i know reads reviews. I remember a time where I could go up to ask him what games I should get. Reviews are bias, and that is why people listen to yahtzee these days. He does not really give two shits about number crunching, but about gameplay and story.

Anton P. Nym:
I, for one, welcome these new EA overlords who actually care enough to at least pretend to care about critical reception, shrinking talent pools, and overreliance on retreads. And who knows, maybe it's even sincere.

-- Steve

Ditto, but Riccitiello has done enough self-reprimanding for the past weeks, now it's time to put up, or shut up.

On a semi-related note, I don't think the recent outspokenness of Riccitiello is any coincidence, given the recent merger of ActiBlision, no doubt that lit a fire under them, hopefully.