SAN FRANCISCO — In his talk today at the Casual Connect game conference, the former CEO of game developer Electronic Arts, John Riccitiello, touched on the disparity between mobile platform creators like Apple and Google, and the developers who make apps that run on those platforms.
“Apple and Google aren’t creating content, they’ve created a distribution platform for the content many of you guys are creating,” Riccitiello said.
But as it turns out, being the company behind the platform has resulted in profits and shareholder value for Apple and Google. The same hasn’t exactly been true for the companies using those platforms. When it comes to the mobile app ecosystem, Riccitiello says that the idea that content is king doesn’t hold true with the current state of the market.
“That’s a joke right now,” Riccitiello said. “Right now, distribution is king. That’s where the money’s being made. That’s where the value is being created.”
In the future envisioned by Riccitiello, devs should get more of the value. “There should be 100 billion, 200 billion, 300 billion dollars worth of value on the (developer) side of the equation,” he said.
Where and how that value will be created remains to be seen.
Previously on GeekWire: Former EA CEO John Riccitiello: Mobile games need to build brands
