EA’s development model isn’t going to encourage innovation
Some time ago I talked about how Electronic Arts development model is broken. Most of that was about how counter-productive it is to keep your people so dog tired that they spend more time fixing their own mistakes then they do writing functioning code.
I briefly touched on another problem with routinely overworking your people, which is that you are just not as creative when you’re tired.
Let me backtrack a moment. When I first got into consulting I lamented that the client always got my best ideas for free. My moments of inspiration often happened in the shower, some of my co-workers might come up with a brilliant idea while driving to work, someone else might have jotted down the solution to a tough problem on a napkin while they were at dinner. Quite often some of our toughest challenges and most innovative ideas came at times when we were thinking about something completely unrelated to our work. I’m not sure why this is. I know that I personally tend to file things away in the back of my head so that I never completely stop “working” but at the same time I can go on and enjoy other activities. When I take a shower I am completely relaxed and it is one of the few times that I can completely turn off my brain. Once all those distractions are gone then I have those moments where I am not grinding on the problem but have had some rest and I am stress free. I would theorize that it gives me the ability to focus my whole consciousness on the problem rather than deal with the many distractions that continually creep up at work.
Who knows what the real reason is? All I do know for sure is that in order for me to be creative I have to have time away from work. I need time with my family and hobbies to take my mind off of the concerns the work day often brings. What often happens is that if I don’t get a break from work I become more worried about the problem then finding a solution. It’s much easier to get fixated on “We’ve got a bug no one knows how to fix” then it is to start thinking “How do we fix this bug?”.
EA creates games that strike me as solid but uninspired. They are experts at ripping the souls and character from the games they develop. Each release of the Burnout series since it went to EA has shown less character and creativity and have come up with new ways to get away from its core concept. I miss the days when the game was just about racing through dense traffic at ridiculous speeds. I know “ripping the souls” sounds melodramatic, please don’t misread that as saying all EA can do is make crappy games. They can make good games, they just rarely make great games. They’ve got the typical big company fallacy of making decisions based on market research rather than taking risks. Yet market research can be misleading and often leads to the most bland and “safe” product possible.
This is why EA could greenlight a project such as “Marvel Nemesis” because from a marketing standpoint it looks like a great idea. Let’s create some new Intellectual Properties (IP) that we can establish as a brand and then combine them with an established brand. After all, it worked with Marvel vs. Capcom, right? Of course, it overlooks that Capcom had an established stable of characters, while EA has been too busy getting licensing rights to sports franchises to bother actually, ya’know, creating anything.
Who has time to create at EA? They’re too busy working unrealistic schedules to meet unrealistic expectations. It’s all well and good that the employees won a lawsuit that entitles them to overtime, but the reality is that EA will likely find it better to pay overtime than adjust their development model to something realistic. Furthermore, even if employees are empowered to make creative decisions, and I get the distinct impression they are not, they’re too busy to actually do anything brilliant. After all, at what point in the day are they going to be able to detach themselves completely from the workplace long enough to get that flash of insight or moment of inspiration? Inspiration comes after the 2nd cup of coffee, not hour 20 of the work day.
If there was a lesson to be learned from the Marvel Nemesis project it was that EA is poor from an IP perspective and needs to start changing how they think. They would do well to break up their teams into independent studios and allow them more freedom in how they develop product. The reality now is that the only creativity we see from EA products don’t typically come from internal teams but development studios that use EA as their distributor. EA has the resources to not just be a marketing and distributing powerhouse, but a creative powerhouse as well. Until they are willing to make some serious adjustments in their corporate culture, that is just not going to happen.
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September 28th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
I agree with you except for the bit about Burnout because I feel that Burnout Revenge Xbox 360 is by far the best Burnout game.
October 5th, 2006 at 7:19 am
[…] and How They Are Blowing It). Also with a keen eye, Unfettered Blather takes a look at why EA’s development model isn’t going to encourage innovation and King Lud IC examines the flip side of […]
October 5th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
I attended a talk by Niel Young (not the musician) at GDC about how new feature IP was an even bigger money maker than original setting or character IP. What he showed off, however, was more realistic motion capture and facial animation, which has some promise, showcased in some WWII game (Call Of Duty 2?). The catch, however, is the assets generated were static, the result of paid actors coming in to produce non-interactive “watch” content in the “ooh, scripted things are happening around me, this is interactive storytelling!” sense that was hot eight years ago when half-life came out.
So I’d say that EA is very good at producing solid, even good games on a consistent basis, because they’ve mastered the waterfall and have the funds to pour down it. The result is games bloated with static assets, whearas the really great games, the ones with character, often exhibit a unique procedurality.
At my company, I can get that procedurality by paying a single programmer/designer (he’s brillaint too, check out his blog, Project Perko) and I can get the character by paying a single artist. We’re doing a casual game, I imagine the scope will increase in future projects, but thats where outsourcing comes in.
Let the player and the processes make your content for you, and not only do you save time and money, you open up the potential for the game to be truly interesting.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:48 am
You hit the nail on the head. Creativity isn’t the goal, control of the product is. I’ve worked in enough C-level environments to know that one thing above all that the “bosses” want is to have a product they can control and predict from cradle to grave.
A lot of these mediocre or good games are produced because the results were proven in the past and it is estimated that a similar set of circumstances can be created by sticking to the formula. Good games are really what EA wants, great games are a side-effect they will welcome, but certainly not what they are striving for despite what they claim.
Great may be the goal to some, but the meetings and planning sessions I suspect parse down anything too bold.
This is why pre-existing properties are so sought after and traded like real treasure, they offer the corporate an angle of predictability.
You cannot take risks and innovate while being comfortable unless you have a great deal of faith in your team and abilities. Thats asking someone else to be in the driver seat and most people in management on up to the top simply cannot envision that. This is putting faith in people, not the product. People cannot be broken down in to pie charts and powerpoint presentations.
The sheer number of Grand Theft Auto clones for example is just corporate trying to cash in on the comfort blanket.
EA treats games like a product but they really need to take some concepts from other aspects of the entertainment industry. Games are more than code. How are people going to feel playing it? What is the game trying to tell them in regards to it’s story? How does the actions in the game relate to the story?
You know guys, treat it like something called “entertainment” rather than an strict software.
November 21st, 2006 at 1:24 pm
[…] do one thing very well, they cannot change course quickly. I wrote just the other day on EA’s lack of creativity and even made this observation - The reality now is that the only creativ […]