Speaking with a graduating class at UC Berkeley, John Riccitiello had a few pearls of wisdom to share with the soon to be ex-students.
"You've worked hard, you've earned a degree, and you're on the doorstep to a great life, looking forward to future success," said EA's CEO John Riccitiello, speaking with the 2011 undergraduate class from UC Berkeley's Haas School of business. "With this in mind, what better topic could I pick to talk about than failure? I'm going to stand up here and spend the first few minutes of the rest of your life assuring you that you will fail. And you will. That is, if you want to succeed in any way that matters."
Riccitiello's opening provoked a spontaneous ripple of applause and whooping from his audience, but he had plenty more to say based on his past experiences as CEO of EA, and also in his previous positions over the years.
His speech, among other things, examined EA's varying fortunes over the years, and particularly its failures around 2007 and 2008, during the transition period to the "next gen" consoles. There were many issues to consider, not least of which the growth of digital distribution and the Internet.
"The Internet was about to do to the game industry what it had done to music, movies and newspapers," he said. "We were facing a world going through unbelievable change with the rise of smartphones, social networks, and more recently the iPad, each of which has turned out to be a platform where gaming is the number one application."
Riccitiello discussed EA's considerable losses and how the company had to cut its costs by laying off a huge number of employees before it could even think about regaining its former glory. It was a difficult time, he said, and the company is still working on building itself up and learning from its past mistakes.
"I would argue we failed well," he said. "We were students of our own failure. We used our failure to shape and impel us to a better strategy, one that we believe will ultimately succeed in ways that our previous strategy -- even if perfectly executed -- could never have done."
Riccitiello's candor and honesty makes you wonder what would happen if current industry giant Activision were to run into tough times. Would Bobby Kotick be as humble?
Check out the video of Riccitiello's full speech here.
Source: Daily News from GamePro.com
Tuesday, May 24, 2011