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EA responds to ex-exec criticisms

Published on 18th January 2010 by Joe Martin

Electronic Arts has responded to criticisms made by an ex-executive who said EA was in the wrong business.

Electronic Arts has responded to criticisms made by Mitch Lasky, a former EA executive who claimed that EA was "in the wrong business" and was behaving naively when it came to planning for a digital future.

In short, EA's opinion is that "Mitch needs to try de-caf", says VentureBeat.

That's according to Jeff Brown, EA's head of corporate communications, who says that Mitch is only bitter because he was turned down for a job at EA. Mitch Lasky is currently a partner at tech investment firm Benchmark Capital.

"Mitch needs to try de-caf. It's never easy being turned down for a job, but most people don't spend three years obsessing about it. Since Mitch left EA, Apple invented the iPhone, Facebook evolved to include a gaming platform and EA Mobile became the world leader," said Jeff.

Lasky maintains that EA is in dire-straits at the moment, pointing out the poor performance of games like Spore, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed: Undercover and the closure of Pandemic.

Doug Creutz of Cowen Research joined in the nay-saying, stating that "We continue to think EA has missed the current hardware cycle and is unlikely return to historical operating income margin levels."

Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

12 Comments

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Bauul 18th January 2010, 11:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Article
Lasky maintains that EA is in dire-straits at the moment, pointing out the poor performance of games like Spore, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed: Undercover and the closure of Pandemic.

Since when were those games all a failure? EA sold 31 titles that sold over a million copies in the financial year to March 2009, better than the previous year, all of which I imagine the above games fall into.

Unknownsock 18th January 2010, 11:29

Regardless if they've done good or not they can still do better and i agree 100% with what he said.

Arkanrais 18th January 2010, 11:33

Quote:

EA Mobile became the world leader

Am I the only one who thinks EA are working toward some kind of world domination endgame?

Cerberus90 18th January 2010, 11:59

NFS Undercover was shocking, like, unplayable, hell, I couldn't even complete it, because the game crashed every time I tried to start one of the main story missions.

Just started playing through Mirrors Edge though, and that's awesome. Never played Sport, but it looked alright.

Problem with EA has been the DRM, but IIRC, they are slowly getting rid of it aren't they?

Slash88 18th January 2010, 12:10

All EA games are badly made.

CardJoe 18th January 2010, 12:13

Mass Effect 2 disagrees.

licenced 18th January 2010, 12:18

Quote:

EA Mobile became the world leader

EA what-now? World leader? I never voted.

cheeriokilla 18th January 2010, 12:53

Battlefield disagrees also... And the current benchmark, the one page everybody runs to when a new GPU comes out disagrees too (yes, crysis).

paisa666 18th January 2010, 13:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheeriokilla
Battlefield disagrees also... And the current benchmark, the one page everybody runs to when a new GPU comes out disagrees too (yes, crysis).

Hmm.. Battlefield, as mirror's edge is made by Digital Illusions (EA) while crysis is made by Crytek, EA just distribute it.

And well, since distribution is what we're talking here, remember that Crytek decided to to stop Crysis as a Pc exclusive, why you ask? because it didnt sold really well (digital and hard copies), now lets just imagine if it were only digital copies distribution,as EA claims is where the future is, and by future meaning two years. Crytek would be dead.

Molajoku 18th January 2010, 14:38

They should do Digital copies and if you really love the game you should be able to trade it in for a special edition hardcopy with artwork and special features like interviews etc.

£20 for the game
£20 for the special edition (when handing back the activation code for your downloaded copy...making a total cost of £40 but with a little less sting as it's not all in one go and you already know you love the game)

Xir 18th January 2010, 15:02

Newsflash:
EA believes in EA
Phew, who'd have thought that?

SMIFFYDUDE 18th January 2010, 19:59

EAs response: blah blah blah, not listning not listing, blah blah blah, Mitch is a poo poo head, blah blah blah.