Prediction: Riccitiello will not finish the year as Electronic Arts CEO

I predict that Jon Riccitiello will be forced to stand down from his position as EA CEO sometime in 2010, because of a number of missteps by the company in 2008 and 2009, including:

• Choosing to allow Pandemic to make an open world Batman game, leading to EA failing to release a game for the enormously successful The Dark Knight, costing EA an estimated $100m of revenue and leading to the closure of the Pandemic Brisbane
• Pandemic LA's The Saboteur limping to a lacklustre release, resulting in the closure of the studio
• Rock Band: The Beatles failing to set the world alight
• Paying more than $250m for social gaming company Playfish, a move that probably makes long term sense but which has the feel of a company thrashing around for the next big thing

The Pandemic issues in particular are ones that Riccitiello can't shift blame for - he bought Pandemic and Bioware from his old company, Elevation Partners, for an eye watering $860m in 2007. Unless Bioware's Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, becomes a "World of Warcraft"-level success, this will have been a gross overvaluation, but nevertheless it saw Jon personally pocket $5m.

Having been displaced as the top Western third-party publisher by the Activision-Vivendi merger, 2009 was always going to be an awkward year for EA. The company is not used to being #2 at anything and has been slow to tackle the incredible middle-management bloat that holds it back like a huge ball and chain.

I believe that, as often is the case, past sins catch up with someone just as performance improves.

I think that 2010 will actually be a very strong year for EA. It's a (soccer) World Cup year and with FIFA 10 completing the turnaround in football game fortunes over the last three years (PES is now the game looking second-rate and tired and FIFA is now a bigger seller for EA than Madden), the "Road to South Africa" edition (or whatever they call it) will sell very well in the summer, even picking up some (moderate) sales in non-traditional territories such as the US, where the prospect of a US-England group game will pique interest.

The new Medal of Honor game, set in a modern-day Afghanistan, will deliver a more coherent and lengthier single-player campaign than Modern Warfare 2 and with DICE working on the multiplayer, may possibly even challenge its multiplayer dominance. Activision are not without their problems either we should add - Tony Hawk's RIDE has been a disaster for instance (more on that later).

EA's MMA game will be surprisingly good and sell well (but will still be heavily outsold by the new UFC title from THQ.) Bioware will have a strong year with Dragon Age posting good sales, Mass Effect 2 performing well and The Old Republic getting off to a (relatively) painless launch.

Bonus prediction: EA's lawsuit against repulsive trademark troll Tim Langdell will result in the termination of his marks, to much rejoicing.