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John Riccitiello has a plan to outsell Call of Duty: Make a better game. And make a better game again.”
In an interview with Kotaku, the EA CEO said the publisher plans to develop and release a string of high-rated titles that will enable the firm to eventually dethrone Activision’s multi-million selling FPS series.
Riccitiello cited Metacritic scores as a good gauge of how well EA are doing in their battle against COD – observing that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 currently boast the same Metacritic rating of 88.
If I had to pick the story I’d like to play out next year is we ship a 90 and they ship an 85,” he said. [Activision has] an awful lot of momentum without heir brand, no doubt. What I’ve witnessed a couple of times in the games industry is the way you unseat a market leader is you make a better game a couple of times in a row.
With this strategy, Riccitiello is confident that over time, we can take the lead”, echoing EA Europe SVP Jens Uwe Intat’s comments to MCV earlier this year that Medal of Honor wouldn’t topple COD first time.
While Medal of Honor performed well enough – shifting 1.5m copies worldwide after just five days on sale – EA’s CEO believes that the DICE-developed Battlefield series is the publisher’s strongest contender in the FPS market.
I have great expectations to do a lot better in 2011 than in 2010 on the strength of a couple of products like Bulletstorm and Crysis [2], but most importantly for us, Battlefield 3, which I feel incredibly good about,” said Riccitiello.
