EA CEO wants COD to "rot from the core"

EA boss John Riccitiello wants Call of Duty to rot from the core”.

Or in other words, he wants Battlefield 3 to draw the hardcore gamers away from Modern Warfare 3, leaving Activision’s franchise to the mainstream consumers.

A lot of people bought Modern Warfare more for the coffee table and didn’t play it for two months,” he told Industry Gamers. There’s sort of that mass audience… [Activision is] going to win there. The question is, if the gamer buys our game and the mass audience buys their game, where do the two meet?

And all I want to do is to have them rot from the core… I don’t really give them the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve got no choice but to wait and watch.”

Riccitello went on to say that while he admires what Modern Warfare 3 does well, Battlefield’s strength is its focus on realism rather than over-the-top gameplay.

He said: 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.

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. I think there’s a lot of things to like about our product and I think it’s going to be a great battle.”