Maybe I was part of some larger scheme? The article also mentions something fun:

EA also again highlighted a quality boost for EA Sports titles, noting a 4 point year-over-year increase in aggregated Metacritic scores on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

This drove me fucking nuts at that company. EA is obsessed with Metacritic, and has been for years. Their internal project goals are things like “achieve a 90% Metacritic rating”. This is bullshit for a bunch of reasons I was never comfortable articulating in person.

Metacritic scores are weighted averages of numbers reviewers pull out of the air. Worse, sites like 1up.com assign games a letter grade, not a score. This holistic grade is converted into a gross percent somehow and then averaged against the other ratings. Metacritic reports no +/- X%, Y times out of Z.

Okay, so the ratings aren’t scientific but surely they act as some kind of bellwether? Metacritic weights the opinions of certain critics higher and, to be frank, EA is notorious for manipulating critics. “Oh, so Spore is only a 75%, eh? Well, good luck getting a preview copy of the next Madden.”

I don’t make that accusation lightly. I was once at a meeting where a producer literally said, “we get good reviews by making good games. Failing that we get good reviews by manipulating the reviewers.”

Find the highest-weighted reviewers, send them carrots and hit them with sticks, and you influence the magic number. Yippee!

And assuming all that isn’t the case, “achieve a 90% Metacritic rating” is a terrible goal anyway. Goals are supposed to be things that you can actually effect. That’s like saying “my goal is to force people to like me” — it’s just not a mature way to go about planning.

EA is trying to quantify their business and as a terribly disappointed shareholder I have to give them credit for that. Let’s look at the sports market holistically though.

EA’s products are stagnant, a red cape fluttering before the Activision Blizzard bull taunting, “come take this from us, we dare you.” The non-hardcore audience for these games is starting to wake up, “hold on a sec here, paying $70 per year for a statistics update is fucking lame.” Yes sir, especially in this economy. For entertainment to be a recession-proof industry it has to, you know, entertain.

Sports aside, EA’s creative divisions have been running off better product. Rock Band has finally signed The Beatles and the number of non-sequel titles they’re dropping is up, so there is a big silver lining. There’s lots of cloud though too: EA’s been pursuing a 1980s strategy of growth through acquisition and we all know, or should, how that turns out.

Higher Metacritic scores or no, the stock’s lost over 50% this year and is way down from the 2005 high. Maybe it’s time for Riccitiello to stop surfing review sites and step aside?