EA exec responds to Lasky slagging

By Ellie Gibson Published 18 January, 2010

"Mitch needs to try decaf." Ooh burn.

Electronic Arts communications boss Jeff Brown has hit back at suggestions the company has lost its way, using the kind of barbed language usually only seen on internet forums.

He was responding to a post on the blog of former EA exec Mitch Lasky. As reported last week, Lasky reckons EA is "in the wrong business" and has been pursuing a "bankrupt strategy" of late. Nonsense, said Brown.

"Mitch needs to try decaf," he told Venturebeat, before implying Lasky is just bitter because the post of CEO went to silver fox John Riccitiello.

"It's never easy being turned down for a job but most people don’t spend three years obsessing about it," Brown said. "Since Mitch left EA, Apple invented the iPhone, Facebook evolved to include a gaming platform and EAMobile became the world leader." BOOOM.

Rumours that Brown and Lasky have agreed to meet by the recycling bins in the car park at 5pm no blades are completely made up.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • actionfitz #1 2 years ago

    "Rumours that Brown and Lasky have agreed to meet by the recycling bins in the car park at 5pm no blades are completely made up."

    lol.
    handbags at dawn much :)

  • AphoticCosmos #2 2 years ago

    Damn, dude got burned!

  • arctic360 #3 2 years ago

    "Rumours that Brown and Lasky have agreed to meet by the recycling bins in the car park at 5pm no blades are completely made up."

    I heard the agreement was to meet at the school gates at 4pm with 2 of your gang mates! Ha ha

  • kangarootoo #4 2 years ago

    What a sorry bunch of twats.

  • Distributor #5 2 years ago

    One is bitter but still speaking half truths. The other is doing damage control with fluffy marketing talk with a twist of Gung-Ho.
    Both are correctly incorrect.

    There might be changes in the marketpalce and EA might of had some success but the golden days of EA are gone. And its playing catch up. During riccitellos time in office EA has lost over 50% of its share value. Not really accolades to put on your CV?
    Edited by Distributor at 18/01/10 @ 10:21

  • Meho #6 2 years ago

    I like how JR is always "silver fox", or "silver-haired" or "silver-maned" in news pieces. What a nice industry meme.

  • irve77 #7 2 years ago

    "you crack me up little buddy"

  • mezzomorto #8 2 years ago

    EG staff - FYI the hyperlink to Venturebeat just sends you back to [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net
    ]http://www.eurogamer.net
    [/link]

    A genuine oversight or just bumping up the number of hits you get!? :p

  • ParanoidZombie #9 2 years ago

    "I will meditate and then destroy you".

  • SAMagic #10 2 years ago

    Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

    It's like we're back in the playground!

  • Fab4 #11 2 years ago

    Its like a scene from Anchorman.

  • 1471 #12 2 years ago

    "There might be changes in the marketpalce and EA might of had some success but the golden days of EA are gone. And its playing catch up. During riccitellos time in office EA has lost over 50% of its share value. Not really accolades to put on your CV?"


    Bit of a problem, yeh. At least they're trying to make good games and new ips now. EA's problem was that they seemed to have given up and were content to pick up well loved studios and smother them to destruction. At least Bioware is still around and for many is some kind of Royal seal of approval. It's unfortunate that their recent stuff haven't been massive and immediate financial hits, but that's the creative industry for you. Without new ideas you are completely dependant on your old ones continuing untroubled. Then PES comes out and you have to do some actual work.

  • linksdad #13 2 years ago

    Could the drop in share price be a by product of their past strategy of milking the shite out of their IPs?

    It takes a long time to turn an oil tanker round and it seems with all the new IPs now on board they will have something to work on in the future. If they hadnt gone down this new route what would be left and what would the share price be?

  • Distributor #14 2 years ago

    I dont think their share price had nothing to do with their milking strategies.
    A lot of the actual shareprice has future expectations built in, which investors have seen as not paying off.
    The drop in EA stock is just deflating the hotair built into it in the past.

    I think bioware is the one that saves EA for the most part. Like 1417 said Bioware is a bit similar to Blizzard in the sence that people expect that they push out quality stuff and are not rushed. ME2 will be a big seller. DA didnt do too badly. But SWOR will make it big thats for sure. People are just dying for that franchise. Seeing as people still play SWG and a lot of WoW players are just aching for an excuse to try something different, Bioware has huge potential to really nibble at Wow´s marketshare pie.

  • kangarootoo #15 2 years ago

    @link'sdad and Distributor

    For my money I think EAs financial situation is as much to do with costs and company structure as it is to do with the content they have been making. They have quite simply been spending too much and not selling a diverse enough portfolio of titles.

    One of the main competitors for comparison is Ubisoft, and Ubi are a company with a really tights costs model. They put studios in countries that give tax breaks to game development, they invest in tech that is used across multiple titles, they base a lot of their staff-heavy operations in Shanghai where cost per employee is lower.

    I think EA spent too long rumbling along unchallenged (the oil tanker analogy is a good one) and then suddenly found that they losing even a small amount of market share became crippling because their costs are so damn high.

  • metalangel #16 2 years ago

    Lasky got f'd in the a!

  • Murton #17 2 years ago

    Lasky did have a point, but he communicated it quite badly. He came across as a man bitter at his former employer for letting him go, though we've all been there if we're honest it's not a good position to come from when trying to deliver a logical argument.

  • Slipstream #18 2 years ago

    Rumours that Brown and Lasky have agreed to meet by the recycling bins in the car park at 5pm no blades are completely made up.
    Fisticuffs then?

  • Collymilad #19 2 years ago

    You know what gets me about this whole thing?

    People go on about share prices. Yeah, they are a business, but at the end of the day they are an entertainment business. So if they are churning out shite to put the numbers up, what do we get out of it? I understand they need to make money, but if they can't do it whilst putting out quality products then i'd rather they didn't at all, as we are not here just to sustain some money-generating corporate machine.

    It's sad really, EA went from making shit to handling some really good games (either publishing or developing) and as soon as that happens shareholders start bitching. As I've said I realise they are a business, but let's face it - you can say that all you want and it still boils down to people who only give a crap about money (i.e. the value of their shares) influencing something you consider as entertainment. I don't see how people find that acceptable, such as the people who seem fine with it because "it's a business"