To say that there were just a few things happening at EA this week would be just shy of an understatement.  Not only did now former COO John Pleasants more or less lay out EA’s plan to get back to the top of the gaming heap, but they’ve also stepped things up a bit by publicly posting a job ad for a “User Experience Designer”.  Oh, and shortly after Pleasants’ interview (literally his last day), he left EA to become the new CEO of Playdom.  Right.  Let’s get started.

On Wednesday, paidContent.org ran a very informative and interesting interview between reporter Tameka Kee and at the time EA COO John Pleasants.  Kee’s interview focuses mainly on what EA’s up to in regards to the strong push to an online component to their latest games, citing The Sims 3 as a prime example.  Pleasants admits that EA is, “…creating a live service across a portfolio of titles, with some social aspects and a variety of business models, including micro-transactions and subscriptions.”

Speaking to the social aspect of gaming Pleasants gives a strong nod to free-to-play/microtransaction supported gaming studios such as Playfish and Zynga, and states, “we’re in investment mode, and we’ll be announcing deals with companies that will be of note sometime in the near future.”  To this end, it’s also come to the light of day (although nearly half a month old now), that EA recently posted a job listing for a “User Experience Designer” that can “lead the design and prototyping of applications for online games, community features and e-commerce transactions” for a “new social gaming platform.”  Read: we need someone with experience in building social networks, communities AND has microtransaction experience.  To be honest, that sounds more like three jobs in one, but then again, I’m no staffing director.  This new developer would be ‘the man’ to drive the reigns at EA’s Ontario, Canada based Waterloo studio.  Looks like Margaret Wallace’s predictions on some of the old school giants investing in social gaming is right on the money.

Ok, fine and dandy, the world at EA is looking bright and shiny.

But hold the phone – what what?  John Pleasants has been named the CEO of Playdom.  Say wha now?

They say hindsight is 20/20, but if you read the interview that Pleasants did with Dean Takahashi from VentureBeat with this knowledge now in hand, you might be able to detect just a splash of animosity tossed in there.  Such statements such as, “Yeah, he tells me what to do and I do it.” In regards to his working relationship with CEO John Riccitiello, and “I don’t want to sound like I’m countering my boss. But I think quality is an overused word for a dynamic equation.  Trends are changing. You have to have quality, following the right trends. You have to make quality stuff, but it can’t be in a category that is disappearing or becoming a niche. John has been vocal about saying that our marketing didn’t work well. We didn’t manufacture hits. To make a hit, you have to both make the right thing through high product quality and also hit the market in the right way.”  Sir, it not only sounds like, but in fact, is, a direct counter to your bosses’ statements.

Perhaps there is in fact no bad blood going on here, but you’ve got to admit, the timing and the nuanced phrases are remarkably suspect.  With Playdom reporting numbers close to $10 million per quarter via microtransaction sales, it looks like Pleasants just made quite a wise move.  His departure only hails a continued mass exodus of top EA execs, but then again, former EA exec, John Schappert who left to go work with microsoft, is now heading back to NoCal to replace Pleasants.  Need a road map by now?  Me too.

While EA’s clearly trying to head in the right direction with casual gaming, social networking, and microtransactions, the question remains,can the behemoth get it together in time and can they really deliver what we want, before we know we want it?