The discussion begins and ends here. The board members and shareholders really don't give a flying f* about SimCity and some server gaffes or Madden or NFL exclusivity - they care that the company has lost three-quarters of its value under his watch, and that they have consistently missed even conservative quarterly earnings guidances to The Street. I won't speculate as to how much of this is Riccitiello's fault, as no one (even in EA) knows the answer to that, but if you are driving the boat when it runs aground, you take the blame.
My only concern is that the investors by-and-large think EA's problem is not moving more quickly/aggresively into mobile and social, and that's why their stock price is tanking...My suspicion is that that is not true, but I guess we'll see. Business groupthink is always chasing trends after they peak, and I fear we'll see EA dive further into mobile/social at the expense of console/PC because that's where the investors want the company to go. And they will more aggressively try to monetize their products (read: microtransactions galore) because The Street loves that sort of thing. Even as a longtime EA basher, I fear that Riccitiello leaving will lead EA further down a path gamers would rather not see them go (and neither will investors when they see what happens)....