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Electronics Arts CEO Ousted In Wake of SimCity Launch Disaster
mozumder writes "The disastrous launch of SimCity took its first major toll, with EA CEO John Riccitiello being fired from his position and removed from the Board of Directors. It is unknown what effect this may have on the SimCity franchise or any future DRM of EA games, but clearly someone didn't think their cunning plan all the way through when they decided to implement always-on connections for single-player gaming."
Serious question... is this the first time an exec was ousted for a mistake with DRM?
I would -love- if this was because of SimCity, but this entire summary is pretty suspect. It smells really bad of wanting to push forward the idea that "Simcity is a failure, and with it, takes EA".
Like I said, I'd love if this was true - but there are many other reason for the CEO to step down outside of SC5. Not saying the whole mess didn't help him/the board finalize on the decision - but lets not turn into Kotaku levels of terrible summaries here.
Agreed, but what do you expect them to sample?
A global statistical model? They claim not to have one.
A Population of actors doing rational things? They didn't seem to implement one.
Scott Thompson, fired from Yahoo. Hired on by Shoprunner.
Fired for lying on his resume, not because he ran the company into the ground. Despite this, he went from being the man in charge of a company on the Fortune 500 list (barely, at 483), to being in charge of a company that, uhh... doesn't even have a wikipedia page. I had to dig this up to find out what the company even did. It's a startup company nobody's ever heard of.
Léo Apotheker, fired from HP. Hired on as Chairman of the Board for DMK.
HP: Ranked the 10th largest company on the Fortune 500 list. Lost over $300 billion in market capitalization under Apotheker's leadership.
DMK: Doesn't exist.
KMD: Does exist... and is a Danish IT firm with 3,000 employees. Is not on the list. Also... Chairman of a board is not the same as CEO of a company, so it's a false analogue anyway! But let's say he was the CEO -- he went from one of the largest companies on Earth to some tiny po-dunk company in another country.
Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers, went on to work at Matrix Advisors and Legend Securities.
Lehman Brothers: Suffered a total existance failure under Dick's fearless leadership. Was only publicly traded for about a decade before folding. In other words, a nothing commanded by a nobody.
Matrix Advisors and Legend Securities: A hedge fund. It's not even a proper company. And it's primary source of income? The money that Dick was able to hide from creditors when he bankrupted both himself and his former company. Like, for example, the mansion he purchased just before it went under that he sold to his wife for $100 to evade creditors.
So as you can see, each of these people didn't get to "keep their cushy jobs"... every mistake led to a dramatic downward step in their cash flow. Far from proving me wrong, you've managed to brilliantly prove my point: CEOs get just as big of a black mark when they're fired as "the peons" do. All three of the examples you provided resulted in someone being a CEO on paper only -- they were never given a real company, with real money, to play with again.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It wasn't the "voting with dollars" that did this (or rather non-voting), and I would continue to argue that individual purchases don't do dick. What made a difference here was PUBLIC SPEECH, outrageously bad reviews, blog posts, and forum discussions. This is what forced EA spokespersons to take up the issue publicly and make detailed responses; the wildfire of public condemnation. And communities organizing to protest and boycott in the future.
Probably more difference was made by people who DID buy the game, and reported honestly how wretched it was, then someone like myself, who never had any prospect of even possibly buying this game.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
He's a figurehead and a spokesperson at big events, but ultimately is only as good as his advisors and staff. He can't be at every interview for coders, or even interviews for the HR people who hire the coders. He has to trust his staff to do their job, and they didn't. I see this as more of a marketing selling an idea up the food chain, and dev trying their best to hold it together while sticking to their ridiculous deadlines.
The next CEO will be in exactly the same position, because everyone else responsible is still in their position of responsibility.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Have you even played the game? I've clocked about 40 hours and the sims really do go into teh first available house. And the schoolbusses all go to the same stop. And all the moving vans spawn at the exact same time.
Freight does nothing.
Sims will not cross the road to go shopping even if they have money and the shop is of the right level.
If you have a single tourist in your city then the simulation builds hundred or perhaps thousands of hotel beds... then the hotels gets abandoned because they don't have costumers and you demolish it and start again hoping that it won't turn into a useless hotel.
If there is a hidden proper simulation then it is disabled or being ran on so few sims that it's virtually untracable.
I don't disagree with anything you said, but just as much as its not DRM (borked), its not the game play (borked) but the marketing failure he is being ousted for.
From what I have seen there is simply no indication anyone writing official communications from EA recognizes the problems from our perspective. As far as they are concerned they think "he did not sell it right", and as far as the investors/sheep/dollars and cents all play together they might be correct.
Yea its pretty disappointing as product but I don't think that is what is driving the musical chairs game starting to play out at EA.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html