Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
EA CEO Believes Battlefield Can Beat Call Of Duty
It's no secret that Electronic Arts has been gunning for the Call of Duty franchise, what with their aggressive (if not entirely successful) Medal of Honor reboot. However, it's not the Medal of Honor series that EA's top man thinks has the best chance of overtaking Activision's crown jewel.
In an interview with Kotaku, EA CEO John Riccitiello explained that he believes the publisher can take Call of Duty's top spot in the shooter genre by continuing to release better games. He noted, "I think it's interesting that [DICE's] Battlefield Bad Company 2 got the same Metacritic score as [Call of Duty:] Black Ops." Both games currently have a Metacritic score of 88. Riccitiello hopes that Battlefield will pull ahead next year.
"If I had to pick the story I'd like to play out next year is we ship a 90 and they ship an 85. [Activision has] an awful lot of momentum without their brand, no doubt. What I've witnessed a couple of times in the games industry is the way you unseat a market leader is you make a better game a couple of times in a row."
Numerous times throughout the interview, Riccitiello referred to DICE and its Battlefield franchise as EA's greatest hope and something he "feel[s] incredibly good about." Speaking about the upcoming Battlefield 3, he said, "I think we're going to lift the game pretty dramatically in the first-person shooter category."
So why would Riccitiello focus so much on Battlefield and not the Medal of Honor relaunch? If Metacritic and making "better" games is how he's measuring the company's ability to take on Call of Duty, Medal of Honor's current Metacritic score of 74 probably doesn't help his argument.
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
