Electronic Arts has been going after the Call of Duty franchise for sometime, 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.”
Many 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. Also, who would have guessed “make better games.. you get more sales” I think I can be the next CEO of EA now.
