Business: Former EA CEO Riccitiello Now Unity CEO
What about Ian's sale rumours?
Thursday is, as ever, Business Thursday here at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. We're wearing ties, playing Footsie, and folding that pretty pink newspaper into paper planes. It's 12 o'clock, which means it's now time for the RPS #business#noonblast brought to you by Millson's Tie Clip Polish. Millson's! Don't let tarnish tarnish your reputation.
Business is afoot at engine makers Unity. Co-founder David Helgason has stepped down as CEO, and up has jumped former Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello. He'd already been on the Unity board for a year, and an insider tells me his appointment comes after nailing a sikk nollie 720 gazelle nerdflip. "What does this mean for Unity?" Helgason asks rhetorically. "Not too much ..."
"... John completely agrees with our vision and our strategy," he said in the announcement. "If anything it means that we'll be more focused than ever about making sure everyone has access to the best technology and services."
Riccitiello was EA president from 1997 through 2004, then returned as CEO from 2007 to 2013. That second stretch saw EA through changing times, with the digital distribution really taking off, panic over second-hand sales on consoles, and some odd experiments with DLC. Business occurred, and it led to The Ballad of John Riccitiello.
Helgason added, "It means I get to get back to doing what I love the most about working at Unity: strategy, and connecting with developers." Lucky chap.
But what about those rumours of Unity looking to sell that we heard from Ian Video Games a few weeks back? A #business-savvy chap like Riccitiello might be being brought in to chart a course towards Sale Island, or it could simply be to do good #business things.
That Ian I tell you, he's hardly got the best hearing, not since his barney with Barney Bigby on New Year's Eve. Perhaps he misoverheard pub chatter about John Riccitiello as "G'wan really let's sell-o!"