Electronic Arts hasn't always had such a great reputation among fans and industry followers. Last November, the company did institute major layoffs, which resulted in the closure of Pandemic. That said, it's pretty clear that rival Activision is the big publisher everyone seemingly loves to hate these days. In the aftermath of the Infinity Ward situation, Activision did manage to score a big deal with Bungie, but EA has landed more developers, and there could be a reason for that: some may prefer working with EA boss John Riccitiello.
Writing exclusively for IndustryGamers in their monthly Game Trader column, PMC analysts Asif Khan and Adam Kraus noted that industry sources have reported on Riccitiello being more developer friendly than other big name executives (likely a reference to Activision Blizzard head Bobby Kotick).
"Riccitiello and the rest of management seems to be really focused on what made EA successful to begin with. An anonymous source in the industry told us that independent developers are more inclined to work with Riccitiello than other more brash CEOs," the PMC analysts said. "This was apparent at E3 when the company announced that they will be distributing some great new games from Crytek, Insomniac, Valve, Respawn, Epic and Harmonix. The addition of Vince Zampella and Jason West from Infinity Ward adds to the deep bench of great developers working with Electronic Arts."
To find out more about why EA is a good long-term stock, check out the full Game Trader article linked above.
