电子艺界前CEO仍然力撑游戏

    近日，美国电子艺界（Electronics Arts）前首席执行官约翰•里奇泰洛在3月30日卸任后首度公开发表讲话。作为长期负责视频游戏的高管，里奇泰洛在于旧金山举行的Casual Connect视频游戏大会上表示，他过去四个月花了很多时间玩视频游戏。里奇泰洛是为数不多的会长时间玩《战地》（Battlefield）等游戏的游戏公司高管之一。他经常会为开发中的游戏提供设计建议。卸任之后，他对游戏的痴迷似乎有增无减。

    在执掌曾经风光无限的电子艺界六年后，里奇泰洛于今年早些时候辞职。总部位于加州雷德伍德城的游戏发行商电子艺界正在寻找新的掌门人。在此期间，由曾经于1991至2007年间担任公司首席执行官的拉里•普罗斯特担任执行董事长。Wedbush证券公司分析师迈克尔•帕切特声称，上月走马上任成为社交游戏公司Zynga新任首席执行官的前Xbox负责人唐•马特里克原本是最有可能的候选人。里奇泰洛虽然获得了一些成功，但他未能使电子艺界转型成为一家偏重于以数字业务为导向的公司。他也未能提升公司的股价。里奇泰洛离任时，电子艺界的股价为每股18.71美元。而他2007年上任时，这家公司的股价为每股61.40美元。（目前，电子艺界的股价约每股26美元。）

    里奇泰洛是否因此感到一丝苦涩？貌似没有。微软（Microsoft）的Xbox 360和索尼（Sony）的PlayStation 4将带领市场价值高达700亿美元的全球游戏业务进入新的游戏机周期。有鉴于此，里奇泰洛十分看好游戏业的未来。他相信，这些功能完备、完全整合、能连接到大尺寸电视机的在线超级计算机将比目前这一代的硬件更成功。或许如此吧，但困扰游戏厂商的问题在于，苹果（Apple）iPad和谷歌（Google）驱动的智能手机等移动设备的影响对传统的游戏开发将意味着什么。

    里奇泰洛说：“我对下一代游戏主机很有信心，不过随着移动游戏市场涌现出十几亿新用户，我认为这也是一个值得特别关注的领域。移动游戏目前发展很快，远远超过传统游戏机。我当初还在电子艺界工作时拜访过许多移动游戏开发者。他们中的不少人都表示正打算将主机级的图像效果带入移动设备，从而创造出独一无二的出色游戏。我认为这种想法是错误的。如果回到我当年发布主机和PC游戏的年代，单单只注重图像效果，而忽略了对游戏性的追求，结果将导致游戏一败涂地。”

    由于英特尔（Intel）、高通（Qualcomm）和英伟达（NVIDIA）等公司的相互角力，移动CPU和GPU的发展非常迅猛，里奇泰洛认为这种情形和1997年3D游戏机强势崛起时的情况很相似。当时，游戏研发费用暴涨了200%，但销售收入却基本没有增加，那些制作图像逼真的飞行模拟游戏和即时战略游戏的公司苦苦挣扎。不过，一些公司利用3D技术积极探索新的游戏类型，比如体育竞技游戏的表现就相当不俗。

    Former Electronics Arts CEO John Riccitiello recently made his first public speech since stepping down on March 30. Speaking at the Casual Connect video game conference in San Francisco, the long-time video game executive says he spent a lot of the past four months, well, playing video games. Known as one of the few game execs that actually logged hours playing the likes of Battlefield, Riccitiello often offered design recommendations for titles in development. His love affair seems undiminished.

    Riccitiello stepped down earlier this year after a six-year stint at the helm of the once-towering EA (EA). Larry Probst, the Redwood City, Calif.-based firm's CEO from 1991 to 2007, took over as executive chairman while the games publisher searches for a new leader. Wedbush securities analyst Michael Pachter claimed that former Xbox chief Don Mattrick was the most likely candidate to replace Riccitiello before decamping to Zynga (ZNGA) as CEO last month. Though he had some success, Riccitiello had struggled to transition the company into a more digitally oriented business. He also had trouble goading the stock price up; the publisher traded at $18.71 at the time of his departure, down from $61.40 in 2007 when he took over. (It is now around $26.)

    Is Riccitiello bitter? It doesn't sound that way. With the $70 billion global games business about to enter a new console cycle with Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360 and Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 4, Riccitiello is bullish on gaming's future. He said he believes these fully functioning, fully integrated online super computers connected to large televisions will be more successful than the current generation of hardware. Perhaps, but the question haunting game makers is what the impact of mobile devices like Apple (AAPL) iPads and Google-powered (GOOG) phones will mean for traditional development.

    "I'm still a believer in the next generation of consoles, but another billion and a half people came into the industry as a consequence of mobile and I think that's a pretty cool place to focus," said Riccitiello. "Mobile is growing at an infinitely better rate right now than console, but I visited with many mobile developers during the time I was at EA. I've heard many developers say they're going to bring console level graphics to mobile screens and that's going to make them different and better. I think that's a mistake. If I go back to the time I was launching console and PC games, investing in better graphics without figuring out what incremental or better gameplay experience was going to reward the player is a road to ruin."

    Riccitiello compared the current mobile landscape with a new generation of CPUs and GPUs entering the marketplace from companies Intel (INTC), Qualcomm (QCOM), and NVIDIA (NVDA) to the early days of 3-D console gaming in 1997. Back then, development costs tripled, but revenue remained about the same, and outfits making graphically intensive flight simulation and real-time strategy games, for instance, struggled. Companies that use 3-D to explore new types of gameplay such as sports titles did better.