EA Boss Criticizes Call of Duty and Activision

EA CEO John Riccitiello went on the offensive against rival company Activision, its most prestigious franchise, Call of Duty, and the developer of the most recent game in the series, Treyarch.

While it isn't the first time this has happened, Riccitiello cast some serious doubts over the large games publisher and the quality of its best-selling games.

"I don't know that having two guys that probably don't play the games, in the form of the CEO of Vivendi and the CEO of Activision, come out and say 'Treyarch is our lead developer,' like you could anoint that," he told IndustryGamers.

"The question, I think, really is, 'what developer is going to put forward the next great FPS that sort of follows [what Infinity Ward did]? It's wishful thinking, and let's hope for Activision's sake they're right. I think it's far from proven that the gaming consumer views a product from Treyarch in the same category as a product from what was Infinity Ward."

Riccitiello then bragged about the solid first person shooters to be published next year, from partner-projects like Crysis 2 or Bulletstorm to its in-house titles like Battlefield 3.

"Next year we'll make a lot more progress. We've got a couple of third-party games in the form of Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm, and then our big focus is Battlefield 3 in the second half of the year. I'd be shocked if we didn't take a notch out of [Activision]."

"We'll do north of ten million units in shooters in calendar 2010 between Battlefield: Bad Company and Medal of Honor, up from two (million). I think we're the only major player with a 500 per cent growth, is one observation."

"Activision will do 25 million on the tail of last year's Modern Warfare 2 and the start of this year's Black Ops, and then probably something similar next year. But it took them, what, five or six editions to get into double digit millions?"

These are some pretty serious fighting words from the EA boss, especially as Activision is officially citing his company in the lawsuit intended against Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, who recently started Respawn Entertainment with the help of EA.