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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land John Riccitiello, CEO of EA, harvested BioShock‘s Little Sisters.
But it was totally an accident, he swears. Riccitiello played BioShock in two sections, first on a long plane trip to London and then finished it on his way to Singapore — “which will prove I’m a slow gamer”, he said. Having just gotten a new computer from Apple, he found himself switching back and forth between it and Windows.
“The problem was… the key for saving the little girls didn’t work”, said Riccitiello. “My keys were wrong, and I needed to go online to figure out how to re-map the keys on my own while I was in the game. I’d already harvested six by the time I landed in Heathrow”.
“When they turn into slugs, I was a little horrified. I flew to Singapore, finished harvesting and then re-played it”.
So first EA’s boss ate the souls of innocents due to some major mistakes, and then he went back over it to do things the kinder, gentler way? Art imitates life, perhaps?
Incidentally, Riccitiello has also played Portal 2, and said we’re in for major awesome: “It took my breath away”.
Activision was thriving even before its bang-up Vivendi merger, and now on the heels of a stock split, the newly-combined company looks like a force to be reckoned with.
So does EA worry about the new competition for top dog? “No”, said CEO John Riccitiello. “I think it’s a cool company; they make products I like. I like Call of Duty… I don’t play much WoW anymore, but I was hooked for a while. And there’s no question that I thought Guitar Hero, when it first came out, was an innovative product and one I’d like to play”.
“They make some cool products. The fact that the two of them are together, though, doesn’t change much for our industry. Comparing stock ticker to stock ticker isn’t really what happens”.
Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello bears no resemblance in person to Darth Vader. I was a little bit surprised.
“People have asked me many times how EA is going to be loved by this particular audience”, said Riccitiello, when I told him about the popularity of anti-EA sentiment I often see from the readers. I asked him if he’s ever read Kotaku comments, and in fact, Riccitiello was ready right away to recall one of his favourites.
“‘Hating EA is so last year,’” he quoted immediately.
Don’t believe what the timing tells you – EA’s bid for Take-Two was never about Grand Theft Auto IV. That’s what EA CEO John Riccitiello told an audience of investors during William Blair & Company’s annual stock conference, where he was a speaker today.
“For clarity’s sake, I think you’ve got a slight mis-remembering of what we said”, Riccitiello told an audience member who asked about capitalizing on GTA IV‘s release value. “We were extremely explicit that there was no possibility whatsoever that we would be able to acquire the company or close the transaction prior to the release of GTA IV“.
