In a new interview Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has spoken frankly about his concerns for the future of the industry, suggesting that his company and others must significantly alter their business model if they are to retain audience attentions.
Riccitiello voices his concern that the Electronic Arts, and others, make too many games that lack innovation and need to aggressively target casual audiences with more experimental titles.
"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play," said Riccitiello, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. "For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat," he added. "There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before."
Riccitiello’s comments appear to reference not just the content of the games but also their retail configuration, criticizing forty hour long games selling on $50 to $60 discs – a likely reference to the alternatives offered by downloadable content.
Also of note are the games which Riccitiello singles out for praise, including Activision’s Guitar Hero and Vivendi/Blizzard’s World Of WarCraft. Riccitiello suggests that other, more traditional, video games are "at risk of being a little less interesting than Facebook and iPods and the next cool cellphone."
