EA CEO John Riccitiello Steps Down Over ?Shortcomings? In Financial Performance

EA’s CEO John Riccitiello has just submitted his letter of resignation to the company’s board. He’s stepping down on March 30 and Larry Probst is stepping in as Executive Chairman. Probst will lead the hunt for a permanent CEO. The company announced the changes shortly after markets closed in New York and EA’s shares are up 2.1 percent in after-hours trading. He said in a personal statement from the company that he’s resigning over EA’s poor financial performance this quarter. The company suffered a big black eye over the last few weeks with the botched launch of Sim City, which left paying fans frustrated over the performance of the game. “My decision to leave EA is really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year,” he said. “It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. And for that, I am 100 percent accountable.” EA said in the release announcing his resignation that its revenues and earnings per share for the current quarter will be at the “low end” of the guidance it gave last month. The company said its net revenue would come in this quarter at between $1.115 to $1.215 billion. The Sim City game wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back though. “No one was dying internally about it,” says a source who worked closely with Riccitiello. “It was the most successful Sim City ever. It was more that there have been five years of soft quarters and missed opportunities.” EA said today that Sim City sold 1.1 million units sold through its first two weeks. Riccitiello has led EA since 2007 and through a dramatic transformation in the industry as the gaming world has moved from selling expensive console games on the shelves of big-box retailers to one in which mobile phones and tablets are fast-becoming a platform of choice for many developers. Riccitiello was hired into the role after he left EA to co-found and lead Elevation Partners. Another source who worked closely with Riccitiello on shaping the company’s strategy over the last few years said, “The truth is that the game industry continues to pivot very rapidly. EA is in a good place but it requires a lot

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