BioWare/Pandemic Purchase Q&A
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Do you think that the acquisition of Pandemic BioWare sparked more of this push by EA and [EA CEO] John Riccitello to give more independence to its internal studios?
He was thinking that before he bought us. Remember, he was the one that had the vision to put BioWare and Pandemic together in the first place. You know that independent label model as [Video Game Holding], BioWare and Pandemic. A lot of that idea was coming from John, and back then we thought yes, that's exactly what we want to do. He then returned to EA having thought about that model a lot, and he brought that mindset into EA. Before we came on board, he had already broken up the publisher into those four big game development groups. And in some ways, by buying Pandemic, he was really putting an exclamation point on his strategy. That was also a communication internally that stated, (I'm serious about this path I'm putting the company on, and I'm creating a company where the BioWares and Pandemics will want t be a part of this company.)
He's also sending a message externally, saying that this is a new EA. We're all walking around with biases, against the EAs and the THQs and the Activisions of the world, but he really is reshaping that company, and so it's exciting. I'm happy.
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John has been pretty up front about screwing up, as in the cases of Bullfrog, Origin and Westwood. Mess-ups like that are why the gaming public is apprehensive when EA buys up a respected studio.
Actually yeah, they're pretty upfront about the mistakes they've made.
And you can see in message boards and comment sections on blogs, there's still this stigma around Electronic Arts.
Absolutely.
How long will it take to shed that stigma? What will it take?
It's going to change through action and rebuilding trust. I mean look, having said that, EA still makes some of the best games and has some of the best franchises in the world despite their ups and downs. There are millions of consumers that routinely buy EA's products and are thrilled with it.
But having said that, that's not satisfying enough for John and the key people in the company now. He wants to consistently be delivering those kinds of experiences to gamers and he knows how competitive it is out there. You can't rest on your laurels, you have to constantly be reinventing yourself and John has this entrepreneurial streak in him where he recognizes that this kind of change is good. But it's not unfocused or undirected change; its change with a purpose, empower the content creators. [EA will] enable them to take their passion, put it in the products, and basically stay out of their way. It's how I run Pandemic. I make sure that my teams operate as little business units in my company, and they are empowered to make the right kinds of decisions. They have everything they need, and I stay out of their way. I let them do what they need to do. Obviously there are still interchanges and exchanges and engagements and stuff like that. John feels the same way. Hire really, really smart people, give them what they need, and let them do what they need to do. Sometimes they're going to be on a path where they fail, and we'll try to help them, so that they don't. Not that we always have the crystal ball on what's going to fail or not, but like as an example with Spore. It's either just going to be a fantastic success and revolutionize gaming, or people will scratch their heads and go, (What the hell is this and what do I do with it?) But John's willing to make those bets. He knows the future of EA's success is in empowering the really talented creative people and giving them what they need to stretch their wings.
