EA CEO Riccitiello doesn't think investors care about quality

From past experiences with the business practices of his company, I think this is more of a EA issue than anything else haha.

EA has changed, at least it's leadership, but investors often don't understand what they are investing in, they just see money. They don't care about the product, they care about money. Investors are scum-sucking asshats, typically, who would sell their own mother into slavery to make more money. But then, it's what capitalism is all about, pursuing money at the cost of everything else. Have to change the system overall.

"If what Mr. Riccitiello is saying is that any investor doesn't give a sh*t about their quality, would that include us gamers?"

No. An investor is someone who purchases shares in a publicly-traded company, or someone who initially funds product development in exchange for a percentage of the return. A gamer is someone who consumes the product of that company.

Seriously - what is the average age of the writers on this site?

Riccitiello is right. Investors care only about ROI (return on investment). An investor does not care about the product quality. If the company makes its targets every year and pays dividends or raises stock value, investor happy. If not, investor unhappy. Whether the company got to either point with Spyro or Sonic or Master Chief or Bubsy is immaterial.

Most of the time, the investors may as well be putting their money into basket-weaving for all they care about the final product.

Besides, isn't EA itself proof that quality isn't necessarily tied to profits?

Depends if you are a long term or short term investor. If you are a short term investor that only cares about money, I guess you won't care that much. If you are a long term investor that wants the company to do well over time, you should care, because a bad reputation means less profits in the long run.

A stock holder should care, since a stock is the present value of future dividends. However there may be a delay with a quality of a game being factored into consumer demand, profit, and then eventually stock price.

Overall this CEO is stating a bad example of the morel hazards of short term appropriation. World of Warcraft being the excellent counter example of being well polished, with very high returns, over a long period of time.

Electronic Arts has come a loooong way from its roots when it promoted game developers as "rock stars" and the games themselves were packaged in "albums" similar to vinyl records of the day. Now they are just another souless, uncaring corporate entity driven by one and only one motive: profit -- just like Atari. Sad.

Uh...

Investors... well, they invest to make money. It is true that they want the largest return possible on their money, yet they typically don't have forever to wait for that return. Eventually, everyone wants to get paid.

If the developer has convinced the investor that it is the quality of the game that will make the sales, then the investor will probably care a lot about the quality. A good example would probably be Spore, where the game has a very long wait for return on investment, but the developer pitch that the quality of Spore will make it a best seller for years to come is the return. And it will probably be as much.

Most MMOs, investors are pitched on the box sales and subscriptions. So a game like Conan, well, of course they released it unfinished. Hell, they could have known it was going to be a mess. BUT because the market offered nearly no new MMO competition and they had a good hype machine going, Conan had a solid box sale run. Each box sale forces you to subscribe and although people can quit, it has been known from UO days that a large number of people are apathetic and don't quit the game, even after they stopped playing. Heck, I pay for CoH and only play it hard every couple of months.

Does an investor care all that much that Conan had so many bugs and problems resulting in a rocky start. Maybe a little as there is risk of a lower subscriber base. But with strong opening sales and a lack of new competition for a while, I think an investor in Conan is more than happy with their return right now and would do it again even if the game were a bit crappier. Releasing Conan made good business sense.


Now, unless a player is purchasing stock in their game's company, they are not an investor. And, lets say I took your income and invested it in a new MMO. You go to work every day, but now your payday is attached to how well this MMO does and how much you can get back from it. Over time, years, you might find yourself rather hungry for that money... after all, there are bills to pay.

Brian! - you're speaking mostly of a pre-development investor. i think Rigatoni (Rice-a-Roni?) is talking about the type of investor who just buys big blue chip EA stocks and waits around for dividends.

I see where the original Blogger is going but can't say I agree. Just as EVERY product has regular customers (I probably spend more per month on Milk than my MMO) a subscriber is merely a customer.

An interesting take on the investor/subscriber comparison but flawed if only for the fact that the customer never has a say in the way a company does business. The worst they can do is decide to NOT be a customer.

Investors dont give a crap about quality, nor story, or gameplay or what abilities a class has. They are not investors to play games, they are only bothered about (like john said) earnings per share. The couldnt give a rats ass about how that is increased. If rubbish quality games get more earnings per share then boom, thats what they want.

But EA has changed, the leadership understands that through quality comes greater profits but the investors dont need to know that. All they need to know is that X strategy leads to greater profit.

Bloody Ferengi!

Oh and a few have already said.... Subscribers are not investors, they are stakeholders (not to be mistaken with shareholders).

These comments having nothing to do with gamers.

Straight from the horse's mouth! Oh yeah, you just know that KOTOR MMO is gonna rock.