...but gamers do. That's why sales of Fifa and other titles shot up even more than what they normally did when you actually put some effort into the titles.

One of the main reasons why GTA sells so well is because it is a very well made game.

John Riccitiello having a Gerald Ratner moment.

Actually the correlation between games ratings and sales is "statistically insignificant", see here

http://www.gamasut...10924

Using it as a measure of quality is fine however.

I'm guessing one CEO is getting **** from his board today.

Oops.

AAA games take around 2 years to make and another year to establish enough sales to really maximize the IP value for sequels and conversions, that is 12 financial quarters.
History shows us that most investors from outside the industry struggle with the concept of not seeing profits on their shares within 4-8 quarters.
This is why they don't give a **** about game quality and often don't see the bigger picture about how to make really big money out of this industry (with great IP that you own), because they get too jumpy to see the returns on their money too early in the production of the latest round of such titles.
I would have thought that with a company like EA the investors money is just about as safe as it can be in the industry. So unless the whole company has several Baron Munchhausen moments on the spin their cash should be OK in the long term and they should just trust the professionals to get on with it, which I am sure they probably do anyway.

If you keep on writing articles like that, your credibility will suffer. Riccitello said exactly: "I DON'T THINK THAT INVESTORS DON'T GIVE A ****...".

Which has a totally different meaning, right? So maybe you should do your homework before starting such a cheap flame war.

Schmix - you are completely wrong. Check out the original article linked in the story. The direct quote:

"I don’t think the investors give a **** about our quality. They care about our earnings per share."

If you keep on writing comments like that your credibility will suffer. Perhaps a bit more homework was in order ;-)

Yeah, right, like the best developers want ANYTHING to do with EA. NOT!

I think to be in the top 10 in sales, you need a well-reviewed game. But a high score doesn't guarantee that you'll be in the top ten - there are plenty of well-reviewed games that didn't sell well. However, when you go below the top 10, say games that sell 200k or less, then I think reviews don't matter as much.

of course they don't give a **** about quality they just want the game out the door now so they can get the money.

hell my boss doesn't give a **** about quality he just wants the game now... and then bitches at me for changing code (WTF i'm damn programmer) this is the reason why there are so few good game out these days. there are alot of average and poor games and hell look at the wii 90% of it is crap