EA CEO resigns: What's next?

I saw the news about Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello resigning today, and I have to admit, I have ambivalent feelings about the whole thing.

From his statement:

"My decision to leave EA is really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year. It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. And for that, I am 100 percent accountable."

Let's look at some of the positives and negatives from the six or so years Riccitello has been at the top of the EA world:

On the positive side, under his direction, EA took a chance on new titles, signing Harmonix from Activision, and making Rock Band. Also breaking new ground under his reign were: Brutal Legend, Mirror's Edge, and Dead Space.

On the negative side, we see too many games on the EA Sports label that have coasted for too long on an existing engine , the NBA Live debacle (two years running, but credit to the folks that cancelled the game rather than trying to recoup their money rather than releasing a sub-par game), and some really horrible decisions with the recent release of SimCity (with the latest hit being that if you comment out one line of code, you can play off line without being disconnected.)

Electronic Arts were the top flyer in the gaming world when he took over. The recession hit all companies hard, but EA hasn't been able to pull themselves out of the doldrums. It's been two steps forward, two steps back.

Where does EA go from here? There's a cross roads, one fairly smooth but boring path entitled "Continue to coast and play it safe, relying solely on proven titles and small iterations." Then there's a rocky path that has a ton of pitfalls and hidden dangers but has so much reward waiting at the end with it.

Most people would choose the first path, being afraid to fail. Here's hoping the new EA prez takes the path less traveled, because it may make all the difference.