John Riccitiello, former CEO of Electronic Arts, is trying to save his skin.

We recently reported that he called developers who don’t want to monetise their games “f___ing idiots”. It happened when Unity announced a merger with IronSource, a monetisation specialist. Riccitiello first posted a tweet: „Clickbait. Out of full context. Deeply sorry if what I said offended any game dev. Love the people that make games. Creative, hard work.” It’s pretty much PR talk.

He then wrote a more detailed apology. He thinks his choice of words was rude and then apologized and is trying to take a better approach. He goes on in several paragraphs to explain what he wanted to talk about in the interview and what he would have said if he had cared a little more. In the following paragraph, we quote Riccitiello:

“Sometimes all a game developer wants is to have a handful of friends enjoy the game. Art for art sake and art for friends. Others want players [dollars] to buy the game or game items to make a living. Both of these motivations are noble. I was trying to say (and failed at saying) that there are better ways for game developers to get an early read on what players think of their game to learn from their feedback. And (if the developer wants) to adjust the game based on this feedback. It’s a choice to listen and act or just to listen. Again, both are very valid choices. If I had been smarter in choosing my words, I would have said just this… We are working to provide developers with tools so they can better understand what their players think, and it is up to them to act or not, based on this feedback.”

Developers already criticised IronSource for allowing malware to be distributed through their products, with InstallCore being blocked not only by Malwarebytes but also by Windows. It was their first product. Unity has since said that malicious people were trying to exploit the platform. It was limited to “a historical desktop activity that was deprecated and spun off several years ago.” Sure-sure.

Source: Gamesindustry