Electronic Arts
As General Manager of Electronic Arts Redwood Shores Studio, Nick Earl is responsible for the management of EA's Redwood Shores and Maxis studio operations. This includes overseeing programming, artwork, audio, research and development, quality assurance and strategy for top EA GAMES franchises as well as EA SPORTS franchises including: The Godfather, The Lord of The Rings, James Bond, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, and the highly- acclaimed Sims franchise, as well as new titles under development. Prior to his current position, Nick was Chief Operating Officer of the Redwood Shores Studio, responsible for day-to-day operations of the studio at corporate headquarters. Among other games, Nick produced the first Army Men games on PC and PlayStation. He holds a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Related Links: www.ea.com
Last Updated: Tue, Jul 25, 2006
Earl talks about how EA is good at figuring out early on if a game is not going to be successful and starting over before it is too late. EA brings a compliment of distribution, marketing, resources, larger teams, better technology, and high caliber designers, artists, and engineers to help increase the chances of creating a successful game, he says.
Nick Earl, General Manager of Electronic Arts Redwood Shores Studio, shares his insights about moving into the mobile gaming market. He explains that the high price of building graphical games is prohibitive in an environment where there is no hardware standardization.
Earl discusses the several challenges and mitigation strategies used when marketing to a variety of Asian countries. EA's strategy to overcome the IP protection problems is to take games online. He also discusses the need for different technology requirements to market in countries like South Korea where social networking is a key driver of sales.
Kim talks about how producers have the creative vision for a product, while directors make sure the resources are properly allocated and the game ships on time. These are basically flipped from the roles of movie directors and producers, she adds.
Earl discusses the importance of understanding and developing games for local markets. EA started a studio in Shanghai to learn about China's gaming population. He also talks about protecting EA's IP via an online distribution mechanism.
Turner talks about how the James Bond character was done in the third person in the game and his style and control comes from the mechanics of how he moves. He is always the master of his environment, she says.
Earl shares his thoughts about the plausibility of starting a game development company in the current environment. He explains that with the release of new consoles and the growth in mobile technologies, it is a great time to start a company with a target audience in mind.
Turner explains that while console teams can be upwards of 100 people, GameBoy games can be built with 10-15 people. This core group of people is divided up into engineering, art, animation, game design, and production. The product cycle was optimized to get the best product out as quickly as possible by condensing the concept cycle, focusing on a target, and rapidly incorporating feedback, she says.
Earl talks about how the majority of the products at EA are sequels that are released every year. The main decision for EA on these projects is budgeting how many people to work on each every year, he says. Occasionally, there is a new product idea. This idea must pass a lot of market opportunity analysis before it is launched because it is very expensive and risky to build a new product. Still, new products are seen as a critical part of the future of the company, he adds.
Earl explains that EA was previously focused mainly on sports games, but they found that they could not grow fast enough without expanding into other areas, namely entertainment. Games are continually becoming more mainstream and a lot of people can relate to movies making them a popular choice a game topic, he says. EA is now divided into three brands, EA Big (sports), EA Games, and EA Online.
Earl and Kim respond to the question: How has the competition from Grand Theft Auto influenced EA? Vice City is brilliant in its open world design, says Earl, you can go in any direction and interact with the environment. Grand Theft Auto was a little bit of a wake up call for EA suggesting that they should be doing something like it and watching out for the competition, he adds.
The PC market has not been growing as much as was hoped, says Earl. Creating games that can be played against other players from a TV set is an important goal, but the commercial side about how to make money is still under development.
Kim talks about how there is a large range in the projects at EA. Team sizes range from 30 people to 200. Development times take 10 months to 2-3 years. Some projects are original licensed intellectual property, like Lord of the Rings; others are hybrid intellectual property, like Golden Eye, based off of James Bond. Some games at EA are developed completely internally, others are partly outsourced to third party companies, and some are the result of partnerships.
Kim explains that EA's strategy is based on nailing down the "X," or organic fun concept for that product. EA shares knowledge across studios and around development creating a collaborative environment. The development process is pretty standard: build prototypes, do market tests, start to build it and, ultimately, finalize the product, she says.
Nick shows a video of a motion capture technique used in the latest video games. He stresses the need for such innovation in order to compete in a booming market.
There were a number of creative imperatives that were addressed in the development of James Bond, says Turner, primarily, retaining authenticity to the Bond character. Bond has an aura of always being in control of his environment, and this had to be maintained in the game. At a practical level, this required integrating combat and stealth in moment-to-moment game play. This was achieved by combining the best features of two competitive products, she adds.
Kim's first game experience was a hugely successful online parlor game that was launched on AOL. Majestic, her second game, tried to stretch the Internet experience into the next generation of games, but didn't do as well, she says. The core team from Majestic was out of work and looking for another project, and stumbled into the Lord of the Rings.
Earl and Kim respond to the question: How do you increase innovation when a lot of the game development relies on established brands and sequels? A lot of efforts are going onto create new intellectual property, says Earl. Though risky, the new products will ultimately be the core component of the company's future.
Kim talks about lessons learned in game development. The first lesson is to focus. You can't build a game unless you know what it is, she says. The second lesson is that with an enormous team, team culture is an issue. EA solved this by dividing the teams into smaller pods with their own leadership, she notes. The pod leaders would all coordinate on reaching milestones.
According to Arcadia Kim, Chief Operating Officer for Electronic Arts Los Angeles, an entrepreneur is someone who sees an opportunity that other people cannot see, tries to understand the competitive landscape around this opportunity, assumes the inherent risk, and relentlessly and persistently pursues success. Specifically in the game industry, however, the objective for the entrepreneur is to deliver fun, she adds.