EX-EA CEO goes sicko mode

 How very illuminating

You know the problem with developer or publisher interviews and that whole world of pre-packaged reactions? It's all a constant flow of junk, trussed up and poured over by focus groups and script writers all running themselves ragged to ensure that their spokesperson hits all of the perfect talking points and skirts all potential lines of controversy. Which of course makes it all the more hilarious when one clad in such hefty armour inexplicably stacks it in front of the interview mic anyway; I can only assume Andrew Wilson bitterly refuses to talk to his PR team before interviews with the amount of feet-in-mouth that happens whenever his gums go flapping. If you want a little bit of authenticity, so that you really know what's going on in people heads, then you need to trick these guys into an informal setting. That's how the Days Gone developer let slip his thoughts on non-wealthy customers, and it's the only reason I can possible imagine how an EX EA dev managed to be caught waving a middle finger at huge swathes of the industry in the middle of his interview.

The EX CEO in question is one Mr Riccitiello, a man who had jumped around leadership positions for his entire career but settled on an EA position no less then twice in the early 2000's and 2007. His second tenure was ended by way of 'resignation'. (which means he was forced out because of the company's financial performance- which might clue you in a little bit to his bias around this topic, eh.) Unfortunately, like all truly unpleasant crustaceans he seemed to have developed a taste for the copious amounts of money he can squeeze out of the gaming industry and so he has joined the ranks of the other 'musical chairs' of executives who slingshot between various game production studios like they're playing real-life Breakout. And just like the other sub-humans who share his job title, the second he starts flapping his gums without a script that false veneer of nicety melts away and you really start to get an idea of what the man underneath is like.

I actually think it's a blessing that so many people like this are so intelligent in their chosen roles but utter dunces whenever it comes to presenting themselves as anything more than the puddles of piss stains that they are. It's like the great equaliser from the cosmos; Night will swallow day and CEO's will lead their own pitchfork mob. For this instance, it was an interview with PocketGamer about a coming merger where the charm-paint started leaking. Given the interviewing outlet and topic of the blog, this means a lot of the dialogue was very dry and drab, as one would expect. Just a couple of sweaty suits lying about the growing quality of the mobile market they're investing in, trying desperately to convince the world that mobile games have evolved in the past 5 years beyond hashing out more standardised methods of annoying players into coughing up dough. That was until one question in particular.

Pocket gamer bought up the push back that some developers have had to the idea of monetisation entering the conversation of game design earlier and earlier, which prompted a quite candid, and typically confused, quip from our CEO friend. First off, he claims that developers who think like that are a tiny percentage of the industry, and that they are some of his "favourite people in the world to fight with - they're the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They're also some of the biggest F***ing idiots." From the way our man answered this question, in the typical scatter-brained manner of your typical garden-variety passionless career executive, he seems to equate those that stand against the proliferation of egregious and integrity compromising monetisation systems as selfish blind artists who "Doesn't care what their player thinks." Yeah, our 'genius' over here is trying to say that developers who don't want to fleece their audience aren't paying attention to a fanbase begging to be drained dry in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. (Please bankrupt me, Blizzard-kun!)

It was a flash in the pan moment of megalomaniacal greed turning our EX EA man here into a modern day King Lear. ("Nothing will come of nothing; Grift again, lest you mar your fortunes") And you know what? I'll bet this monster in the candle-light is a lot closer to the real man than the lie he wants to sell to the public. It's at this point I should probably mention that his second tenure as CEO oversaw 2012, the very same year that EA was voted the worst company in America. Shows you just how 'in tune with the wants of the people' that Mr man over here is; doesn't it? Of course, I would say this didn't exactly go down well with the public, in fact Mr-guy-whose-name-is-too-long-to-keep-writing received such vehement backlash that he took the cowards way out and apologised. That is, he 'apologised that you didn't get what he was saying'; which is just another beautiful symptom of the terminally socially inept. 

Probably thankful that a scandal is aimed his way from a dumb answer he gave to a question, rather than for the several highly questionable or nakedly repugnant business decisions he has made under his current position over at Unity; Riccitiello took to the dreaded Twit-longer. (I forgot about copy/paste) There he let known to the world that he actually respects all game developers, which slightly runs up raw against the way he questioned the mental acuity of anyone who held a conflicting set of values to his own. In fact, he never even said he hated them to begin with, he actually was very complimentary about his feeling towards such people, only that they were adorably simple from his enlightened perch; like a stupid child or oblivious moron. His condescending concept of 'respect' sort of makes his entire first point of apology moot. So what about his second?

Well his second point is a reiteration of his total misdirection to the original query. You see, for some reason Riccitiello has tried to pretend that this statement he garbled out was actually a total misfire whilst what he was trying to convey was how his new heavily controversial Unity acquisition (he bought a reviled malware host. It's a whole other can of worms.) will benefit the development of comprehensive feedback tools so that developers know the kind of game they're making will have an audience. Which doesn't really address the prompt. Remember, he was asked about monetisation and did not redeflect from that opener quick enough to be able to claim total innocence from his meaning. Under the context he's attempting to readdress all this under the statement isn't quite as foul, although he's still calling fellow colleagues gibbering morons for believing in their vision more than his supposedly infallible feedback. And that's just... it's enlightening to the sort of toxic arse this guy probably is in the workplace. I know exactly what it's like to work under people who freely reference their subordinates and colleagues in such a fashion and they often are whirling nightmares of pompous negativity that will literally ruin your day to share a even the most passing of interactions with. I'll bet he has to invite himself to work functions.

Riccitiello is the kind of guy who doesn't live on the stage of people and stories, he lives in a backroom of his own domineering affectations. He can't grasp what it is to have passion for something as esoteric and unquantifiable as 'enjoyment' or 'art'; he lives in a world of hard finanical returns. And it's a world he's always lived in. Like I said; he's a career CEO; jumping from company head to company head position landing with whoever fits him with the shiniest golden parachute. And there's nothing inherently wrong with being that way, plenty of people live in their own closed world where only the immediate presence exists to them; but ain't nobody going to stand it when their arrogance leads them to believing themselves the one true authority of the world. People like him are confused, and unfortunately, far too powerful and decorated for anyone's good.