EA’s John Riccitello has come out in a meeting with Wall Street analysts to say they dropped metacritic score for the company is troubling. The average score for EA dropped from 77 to 72 last year. He said that the metacritic numbers might just be the most important ones for EA, and the part where the company needs to “recover.”

"Our core game titles are accurately measured and summarized by these assessments, and that is a very big deal,” Riccitello said. Lest you think the company is now going to go fishing for higher scores, or even worse (if you’re a conspiracy theorist) try to buy a few 10s, Riccitello bucks the trend that has caused EA so many problems in the past. Stating that the pursuit of high metacritic scores is a circus that has defined EA for too long. ”It’s not a good process.”

Riccitello doesn’t detail how he wants to focus on improving metacritic scores, but my suggestion would be more Burnout Paradise and less marginally iterative sports franchises. And this crap will do nothing to help the cause.