EA Sports: FIFA 11 Team Will Not Focus On Getting High Review Scores

Peter Moore, the president of EA Sports, has declared in a recent interview that video game development should not focus only on obtaining high Metacritic scores, because that did not always go well with players. Trying to obtain a strong critical reception is a slippery slope that may lead developers away from their audience, according to Moore.

Speaking to Develop, Moore pointed out that EA Sports titles have reached the quality level his company was aiming for, most recently with FIFA 10, and that it was time to move on. He commented that, “I’ve taken the entire FIFA team out for dinner for a tremendous celebration for what they did on FIFA 10, because they not only delivered a 90 they delivered a 91. In terms of what I want from FIFA 11, it is difficult to tell them to go and get a 92 or 93. It is almost impossible to take an iterative annual sports title and get it into the mid-90s. There are no plot lines, no boss characters, no map packs. There will be metrics that I work into their objectives, but I don’t think it will be around Metacritic.”

“Here in the US Robin Hood just come out and it has been ripped apart by the critics, but it made $40m in the first weekend,” Moore continued.  “There is a bunch of games that sell millions of units that only get a mid-70s Metacritic. You can break Metacritic down and say ‘We can get two extra points by doing this’ but it may not actually enhance the gamers’ experience, and that is where there is a line we have to be careful we don’t cross. It is a bit of a slippery slope if you focus everything on Metacritic.”

In recent years, he whole of Electronic Arts started to focus some of its resources on delivering games that could get a positive critical reception. EA's chief executive officer, John Ricittiello, has stated many times that the goal of his company was to produce high quality franchises that would start selling well over time. The early financial results of his management of the gaming giant were not as good as expected, this year EA is going strong and its upcoming releases already look like chart-toppers.