Electronic Arts said it will reorganize the world's biggest video game publisher into four units, in an efficiency drive by its new chief executive, John Riccitiello.
Under the plan announced Friday, Electronic Arts will consist of units that focus on sports, casual games, the Sims franchise and other games. Electronic Arts said the changes, which will not involve job losses, should help it save money at a time when the cost of developing a top-tier game can run up to $20 million.
Riccitiello, the company’s former chief operating officer, left in 2004 and rejoined it in April. He said last month that he intended to realign the company and improve its ability to act quickly.
The changes, based on the success of a pilot program that placed games based on the Sims franchise into their own unit, mean it will require fewer executives to approve new games or to approve introducing an existing game on a different platform or in different regions.
Frank Gibeau will be in charge of the largest unit of Electronic Arts games, EA Games, which will include its Battlefield series of online shooters, Need for Speed street-racing titles and its Command & Conquer strategy games.
EA Sports, which includes the company’s Madden football, Tiger Woods PGA Tour golf and Nascar racing games, will be run by the executive vice president Joel Linzner until a permanent head can be found.
This month, Electronic Arts recruited Kathy Vrabeck, former head of publishing for a rival, Activision, to run its casual games unit. Such games, usually played online or on mobile phones, make up a small but rapidly growing part of the industry.
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So EA is reorganizing to help increase profits eh? Nice to know they are focusing on what makes the gamers happy. Nothing mentioned about the ability to move quickly to FIX PROBLEMS AND ISSUES with their released software or with their servers or anything else. About the only positive thing I see is that EA might be able to move more quickly and have less red tape in trying to release new games. Perhaps in the future they won't be the simple sequel powerhouse that they've really become.
What do you all think?
