EA and Activision have been trading barbs for a while now concerning their respective shooter titles, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which will go head-to-head this fall. Recently, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick doubted Battlefield's presence on consoles, and EA boss John Riccitiello fired back, saying Activision feels "threatened" by Battlefield. During our meeting with Riccitiello at E3, he went even further, telling us that he wants Activision's franchise to "rot from the core," and he thought the pre-announcement of the Elite subscription was a terrible idea.

What does "rot from the core" mean? Essentially, he's saying that Call of Duty has become a mass market phenomenon but that hard core gamers will recognize the quality of Battlefield vs. Call of Duty this holiday and will, he believes, gravitate towards Battlefield instead.


Riccitiello began, "The honest truth is I think Modern Warfare is going to be a really good game. I think that in a weird way it’s starting to feel a little to me like the Disneyland abstraction of a war game – a little bit jump the shark. So it feels a little bit like that to me. And I think there’s a market for that. I think our game is more authentic. It’s definitely going to do a lot of things better. Lighting’s better, physics is better, animations are better, particle effects are better, vehicles are better. I think there’s a lot of things to like about our product and I think it’s going to be a great battle."

"So headline number one, having a clash of the titans in entertainment [is great]. If you’re battling your cholesterol drug versus somebody else’s cholesterol drug, there are only so many people who need cholesterol drugs. The market is getting bigger, but it’s all about cholesterol. So the market divides. Your chips versus my chips. Maybe it gets bigger. But this is great for consumers. When two titans go up against each other, and battle each other for how you’re going to spend your entertainment time and dollars, it doesn’t get better than that. So as a headline, I think this is the best time in the game industry. I love when this happens."

Posted: Aug 19, 2011 8:12 pm

Source: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-wants-call-of-duty-to-rot-from-the-core/