EA Concedes Poor Handling of Past Acquisitions; Admits 94 Separate FIFA Soccer 08 SKUs

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has admitted the company made serious mistakes in integrating several well-known developers, including Bullfrog and Westwood, into its corporate structure, Game|Life reports.

"We at EA blew it, and to a degree I was involved in these things, so I blew it," Riccitiello said at this week's DICE Summit in Las Vegas. "When I talked to the creators that populated these companies at the time, they felt like they were buried and stifled."

EA acquired Bullfrog Productions, creator of the Populous and Theme Park series and former home of industry veteran Peter Molyneux, in 1995. Two years later, Molyneux had left the company. "The command and conquer model doesn't work," noted Riccitiello. "If you think you're going to buy a developer and put your name on the label... you're making a profound mistake."

The CEO blamed the company's habit of applying similar management structures to studios brought under EA's wing, which in turn muted creative freedom. He went on to cite EA's recent acquisitions of BioWare and Maxis as examples of an improved model in which individual studios' corporate culture and goals remain intact.

Riccitiello added that EA's label model—in which teams and studios are designated by genre or product focus—is a solution to many issues facing developers, granting small studios a hefty financial backing without direct meddling in the development process.

During the course of his talk, Riccitiello also revealed that EA Canada's FIFA Soccer 08 shipped on eight platforms in 16 countries, and was localized into 20 languages, resulting in a boggling total of 94 different products.