“Shares of Electronic Arts tumbled Tuesday after the video game publisher said CEO John Riccitiello will step down later this month, raising concerns about the company’s digital strategy,” Ben Rooney reports for CNN Money. “EA (EA) stock was down 8% in late morning trading.”
“Riccitiello’s decision to step down comes weeks after EA launched an updated version of its 23-year old city-building game, SimCity. More than 1 million games were sold at launch, and more than half of those sales were for the digital version,” Rooney reports. “But SimCity’s debut was marred by technical difficulties, including problems downloading the game because demand overwhelmed EA’s servers. After enduring the wrath of angry gamers, EA said it would give certain users a free game to make up for the glitch.”
Rooney reports, “The episode highlighted concerns about EA’s ability to adapt to changing trends in the industry as consumers increasingly favor games that can be downloaded on portable devices made by companies such as Apple.”
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