Riccitiello admits social competitors have "lapped EA three times"

EA CEO John Riccitiello has told NPR that the firm would "like to be number one in every possible area, in every geography," and while the firm is ambitious enough to accomplish such a feat, he admits it's "not there yet."

Riccitiello freely admitted the firm hasn't cracked the social scene the way it had hoped, but he feels the firm will last longer than its competitors.

"When it comes to Facebook, while we're number two, I'd say we're a distant number two," he said. "I mean, the other guys have lapped us three times. The companies that are focused exclusively on social games think of themselves as data companies, sort of analytics companies. They're not really in the entertainment business. I think that will eventually die.

"Consumers want to be entertained. They don't want to be data-managed.

He said in order for EA to surpass its competitors, it will need to "apply techniques like machine learning and neural nets, to figure out what will happen next so that we can tailor the game and experiences to delight our customers."

Riccitiello's comments come on the heels of Zynga announcing today that its new gaming portal, Zynga.com, has accumulated 2.8 million monthly active users since it debuted in March.

Thanks, Joystiq.