Report: Don Mattrick was front-runner for EA's CEO vacancy

It seems that Don Mattrick, who recently left as president to Microsoft’s interactive entertainment division to be the CEO of Zynga, was Electronic Arts’ front-runner to replace former CEO John Riccitiello; Larry Probst is currently EA’s interim CEO.

According to Wedbush-Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, ”EA presents a different challenge from Zynga, with over 4x the revenue and significantly higher profitability, and we think that the company is largely on the right track already. We were surprised that Mr. Mattrick took the Zynga job.. we believed that the larger company presented a more prestigious opportunity.

”Now that Mr. Mattrick has taken the job at Zynga,” Pachter added, ”EA is back to square one in its search. We believe that the company will find few qualified candidates outside the company, and will ultimately choose between the top two internal candidates, COO Peter Moore and EVP Frank Gibeau. Both men are capable of running EA, in our opinion, and investors would respond favorably to either being appointed.”

Riccitiello stepped down as Electronic Arts CEO back in March 2013.