Every week we do a quick wrap-up of some news items that may have slipped through the cracks. The wrap-ups will be shorter versions of our articles, lumped together to give you an idea of things you may have missed.

EA Doesn’t Need to Stagnate to Become Profitable
Last year saw a big turnaround for Electronic Arts when it comes to bringing new franchises to the market, albeit with mixed results. Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space and Boom Blox all came out in 2008 and signified a change for a company that was becoming much more synonymous with re-hashing their sports franchises as a primary means to remain profitable. While the sales weren’t all there for any of those products, and the critical reception for Mirror’s Edge did not ease the tension for weary consumers, they had made moves to pull their reputation out of a hole that they had seemingly dug themselves into for over a decade. The big issue seems to be profits, however, which aren’t hitting the old highs they used to and the significant amount of layoffs at the company (some announced today that will see hundreds out of work with EA Black Box, purveyors of Need for Speed and most EA Sports franchises) combined with a dropping stock value is a serious inflection of the might EA which was an unmistakable force in the market. One might start to think that moving into bold new territories was a serious detriment to their business.

Not so, according to EA’s CEO John Riccitiello, there is no conflict between innovative products and profitable ones. There is something to be said for someone who is able to achieve both in this industry, but it does seem to be a delicate balance that Riccitiello is more than willing to tackle. Pushing the idea that putting out products that the company can be proud and taking a qualitative approach to their games will be something that the stockholders can recognize as a benefit, and the industry will respond if it is a trend that does set in. Taking a look back at the year previous, there is truth to what Riccitiello is preaching, with Wii Fit being a new, creative title that has made truckloads of money for Nintendo. However, just looking at the top played games on Xbox Live last year, the top 8 were all sequels to popular franchises, some of which were more iterative than evolutionary. One can look the wayside at Activision-Blizzard for a totally different philosophy, focusing on the strength of their brands in order to carry their profitability, and it seems to work. It’s good to see a major publisher taking on the role of quality control within the industry, and while there were a lot of naysayers regarding their apparent turnaround, the proof is in the pudding with a good number of original, quality titles released last year. Let’s hope it pays off for consumers and stockholders alike.

Activision’s CEO Draws the Ire of Ars
If it is not apparent by the fact that this feature even exists that I read a lot of other gaming websites, I’ll come out and admit clearly that I spend far too much time trudging through as much gaming news as I can get a hold of. I’ve read lots of scathing reviews and slanderous reports on industry figures, but even I was caught off guard by the low blow delivered by Ars Technica regarding Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick and his attitude towards marketing his company and how he presents himself. They play on the fact that unlike most industry figureheads, Kotick does not even pretend to be passionate about his products in a creative fulfillment way, or admit to even playing his own company’s product. He spends more time in interview with Forbes magazine than answering questions from gaming blogs or even more respected game journalists. His perspective is, and always has been, exploiting the franchises under Activision’s portfolio on an annual basis and it has paid off in a big way. Activision-Blizzard manages to get their product in the top sellers list month on month and continues to push out games that retrieve significant media buzz and mild to great critical success.

Kotick is not a friendly face to the gaming community. His language and focus on profits don’t gel well with gaming press and certainly not with gamers, who are more used to passionate figures who know how to work their personal lexicon to appease the masses. While I do respect the opinion of the author in this case as I do understand we he a lot of other people who share his opinion are coming from, Kotick is not a developer, not a member of marketing. As the CEO his goal is to steer the ship that is Activision-Blizzard in a way that will appease the stockholders, employees and community, and his belief is that pushing out the products the way they do is what people want. The sales demonstrate that, as well. Sure, many of the most charismatic CEOs sell their products with a particular vision and passion that demonstrates a true understanding that makes you believe that they truly are behind what they are selling, and Kotick is far from charismatic in the eyes of the gaming community. In the eyes of Activision he is doing his job, and while his delivery could use a little work, the message he’s pushing isn’t foreign to any other large publishers. Keeping franchises on store shelves, new and fresh, keeps people interested and gives buying habits that are consistent. I’m not trying to defend Kotick’s stance, but his position isn’t one where he should be vilified for perhaps taking a different path than many other vocal company leaders. Maybe his ideals for the company aren’t right, but the market will reveal that in time and as much as people want to see companies with dogmatic concepts fail in the long run, we should just hope that we continue to get good games, on time and with fresh ideas to keep us entertained.

World of Goo is Now Officially Great
It’s official, World of Goo is a pretty good game. This comes straight from the blog Peter Moore, who after spending some time with the game has stated that even major companies EA could benefit from the experience of small developers. He takes a look at the smaller budget and approachable nature of the title as something to be heralded, since it is a focus that a lot of publishers are trying to take given the push towards lighter, less demanding game experiences that are still compelling. While Moore only admitted to playing the demo, he was drawn in and intrigued by the whole concept, the physics and just how well the whole experience was executed.

It does say a lot about the demo of the game and the way in conveys the full experience in a distilled form, but it also adds to the accolades of the developer, 2D Boy, a pair of ex-EA staff set out to design something their own way. It is a strong demonstration of the independent market (and downloadable titles in general) getting noticed by a lot of the big players as a legitimate force, and a new and exciting way to approach gaming. While most companies would take a more cookie-cutter casual approach to smaller games, World of Goo delivers a full experience and fulfills a lot of the wishlists of specific markets, with a strong WiiWare title finally coming out and a PC game that has absolutely no DRM of any form. The more industry vets come outright and praise titles like World of Goo the more hope we have of companies adopting some of these strategies, and understanding a bit more of the trends for downloadable games and what truly works versus just pushing out played-it-before titles over and over again.