Brainy Gamer in the land of The Sims

On Friday I visited EA's headquarters in Redwood City California for an event called Blogger Day. I met producers, designers, artists, and writers working on a variety of projects, and I spent hands-on time with several upcoming games. This is the first in a mini-series of posts describing my visit and the people I met, places I saw, and games I played.

EA's Redwood Shores studio is home to the wildly successful The Sims franchise, its offspring MySims, the forthcoming Dead Space, and several unannounced new games based on original IPs. Lest we forget, The Sims is the best-selling PC game series in history and the 3rd most popular franchise ever, trailing only Mario and Pokémon. To ensure this point was fully hammered home, the nifty green Sims spiral notebook I received in my swag bag was emblazoned with the logo: “The Sims: Celebrating 100 million sold.”

The campus occupies four sprawling buildings situated on twenty-three acres just south of San Francisco. It is an undeniably impressive facility that makes good on all the wild speculative assumptions we gamers tend to make about big development studios: a chic but casual beehive of creative activity full of games and other playful amenities, state-of-the-art 24/7 gym, full-size basketball court, soccer pitch, cafeteria, coffee shop, free movie and game rental store, child daycare with outdoor playground, and a large, open, naturally-lit atrium. And, of course, floor after floor of conference rooms and dozens of dimly lit cubicles littered with concept art, workflow charts, pop culture artifacts, snacks, and personal family photos.

If the idea is to create a workplace that your 2500 employees will never want or need to leave, EA Redwood Shores pretty much nails it. The fact that your pre-school kids (if you've got 'em) are only a short walk away is a pretty big deal, and several designers told me they considered this, and a flexible work schedule, major perks. With an average employee age of 30 and rising, it seems clear the company is making an effort to accommodate the needs of its employees with families. My impression is that Redwood Shores employs more women than most game studios, perhaps because The Sims and MySims are such centerpieces of development here.

In a nine-hour visit, it's impossible to get a truly accurate sense of a place, but one can certainly collect a series of impressions, and I must say mine were overwhelmingly positive. The designers, producers, and artists we met were uniformly upbeat and welcoming, including those I simply bumped into on my way from one place to the next. I've spent considerable time in a variety of work environments - from breweries to factories to Silicon Valley code shops - and I must say that EA Redwood Shores is one of the happiest workplaces I've ever seen. The people I met seemed genuinely enthusiastic about what they're doing, and the whole place exuded an air of creative energy and cordial professionalism.

The profit imperative is deeply embedded in the EA ethos (surprise!), and I was startled by the degree to which our host openly reflected this and conveyed it to us repeatedly. Despite my left-wing socialist egghead-academic leanings, I must say that I found this transparency oddly refreshing. EA is in business to make money, and they don't mind telling you so right up front. Nobody is much interested in making critical-darling games that nobody buys. When our host listed EA's obligations, she made no bones about its priorities. First come the shareholders; next come the employees; and finally, she noted, come the consumers. “We want to make great games,” she said, “But we need to make great games people want to buy.  If we don't make $3 for every $1 we spend, then we're laying off people.” Scary, but at least everyone knows the score.

Touring the campus, it's impossible not to bump into one shrine after another to EA's industry dominance. One hall, in particular, is decorated with plaques commemorating games that reached certain sales milestones. 500,000 units sold was once the threshold; later it was upped to a million; then 2 million. Today, if your game doesn't sell 5 million copies - sorry, no plaque for you. EA's cross-platform muscle is simply stated: “As a developer we outperform Sony on Sony consoles; we outperform Microsoft on Microsoft consoles; we're the number one developer on the PC; and we're second only to Nintendo on Nintendo consoles.”

Obviously, we weren't given free passes to roam the facility unimpeded, but I sensed that as bloggers we were considered less threatening, or perhaps less jaundiced, than our counterparts in the mainstream games media. Clearly, most of us operate apart from the enthusiast press, and our opinions have no impact on Metacritic scores. We're safe, you might say, and as I'll discuss in my next post, we may be a more appropriate audience for the kinds of games EA showed us.

Of course, another way of looking at it is that we're naïve bloggers - easy prey for corporate spin and free hotel/airfare-induced obeisance. Perhaps. But having met the other writers invited (terrific people, but decidedly un-giddy), I would say it's not likely. Frankly, I never felt terribly “spun.” After touring the campus, the format was fairly simple: meet with each game producer (usually accompanied by several artists and designers); watch a walkthrough of the game's features; vigorous Q&A; and hands-on time playing the game with developers nearby to answer more questions. Despite the fact that we were looking at games in various states of development, nothing was embargoed, and we signed no NDAs.

Tomorrow I'll discuss a couple of the games I saw, including one I'm playing now just prior to its North American release: SimCity Creator. And by “just prior” I mean I get to play it a full 48 hours before you do. See how special I am? ;-)

Comments

[Nelson]

Man, I need to become a web-famous game blogger ;) Sounds like they have everything in mind. Or maybe (insert conspiracy theory here). That's a very different kind of idea from what I had of the EA in my mind (the one that bought "everything" and then made games of decent quality). Sounds almost like a nice place, from your description, even with the corporate interest of selling all you can.

[Whitney]

Hey! Its Whitney! I met you at the bloggers day thing this past friday! Didn't we have a great time? Ugh, so many things to do in such a short period of time. But, we learned alot about how the corporate business works in gaming. You work hard for your perks. I like that. I can't wait to see what you write about next about the event!

[Denis]

I'm curious as to whether or not you perceived any acknowledgment of the vast amounts of hate EA seems to get from a corner of the consumers.

But hey, they're still making tons of money, so I can also see why it would not be any proverbial water off their back.

[Michael Abbott]

@Nelson: Yeah, it is a nice place. I can't speak to how or if things are different now from a few years ago when EA was accused of sweatshop-like workplace practices. I saw nothing like that...but nine hours in a place can only result in impressions - incomplete at best. That's what I tried to convey here. I met lots of bright, funny, apparently happy EA employees and had a great time chatting with them.

@Whitney: Hey! Thanks for dropping by. Agreed that the people we met seem to work very hard for their perks, and I'm guessing they're well-paid for what they do. I say good for them. But the populist in me also wishes elementary school teachers, social workers, and other equally hard-working people were treated so well...but I guess that's another topic altogether. :-)

@Denis: I can't speak with any authority to your question, but it did seem to me (based on our host and guide's remarks) that EA has a clear vision of itself as the industry leader with a lot of muscle, and this results in all sorts of complicated consequences.

I'll talk more about this in the next posts, but Redwood Shores is very focused on casual and family-oriented players right now (MySims is a huge concerted effort across several forthcoming games). I'm guessing that in this particular market and demographic, the "EA hate" is mostly absent.

[Matthew Gallant]

EA Redmond sounds like a great place to work. Do you know if they're still expecting 14 hour work days, or have the followed through on their commitment to reasonable hours?

I'd also be curious to know more about the other bloggers who came with you, was there anyone we would know? Anyone we *should* know? :P

[Ms. Pixel]

I find it kind of unnerving that they list consumers as third among their list of constituents. But it explains a lot. Great first post on your impressions of EA Redmond. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!

[Michael Abbott]

@Matthew and @Ms. Pixel: A minor point, but it's EA Redwood Shores (in Redwood City, CA), not Redmond.

I don't know about the work hours, so I'm afraid I can't say one way or the other. Wish I'd had more time to learn more and meet more people.

As for the other bloggers present, it was an interesting mix of 15 or so American and UK writers. Among the ones I recall offhand: GameZone, British Gaming, KiwiBox, Gaming Steve, Infendo, That Video Game Blog, Girls Don't Game, and Nintendojo. Really terrific people that I enjoyed meeting and getting to know. Frankly, I'm not sure why I was invited, but I'm glad I was able to attend. :-)

Thanks for the encouragement, Ms. Pixel! I hope you enjoy the upcoming posts.

[JC Barnett]

Interesting! I'm a little curious, though not necessarily paranoid, about the motives of such a junket. Maybe publishers have gotten too much heat off serenading the press with gifts and trips that now they are looking to the bloggers? Of course, it's great PR, but does this open up the same kind of ethical considerations? Is pandering to the bloggers with information and gifts any worse than doing it to professional journalists? Or am I reading WAY too much into this? :)
Either way, I look forward to reading the other parts of the report, as well as playing all these new products. Though I've never really had the urge to work at EA I do respect their output and am a little tired of them being portrayed as this Evil Megacorporation that eats souls, somehow. Making profit is good because, well, that's how business works! And also, I like The Sims. :)

[Ben Abraham]

Michael, you were invited to attend because you played Madden right after Braid =P

[Tonks]

Many thanks for post, I have a great respect for the people who make our games. Interestingly as much as I love games, Love playing them, Love talking about them, writing about them etc. I would never want to make them my career, im not sure I could keep up the level of enthusiasm needed - Could you imagine you send out tiger woods 08, then Monday morning tiger woods 09 gets underway! I was lucky enough to sit down and play LittleBig Planet with one of the developers recently - he was more excited about playing than I was and I thought that was brilliant.

as much as some people see EA as 'the man' you have to respect what they have done with bringing games to a larger audience.

[L.B. Jeffries]

@ JC Barnett

I can't imagine a company like EA cares who is talking about their games or what perks they gave to get them to do so. The element their PR-hunters are aiming for is trust. Whether or not Michael was given a free bottle of Scotch and a back rub, I'd still be curious what he thought about the products he was shown. I also trust that he's going to be honest, as opposed to influenced by all those nice things.

Bloggers are refreshing because at least the relationship hasn't totally collapsed into patting each other's backs, providing unique exclusives, and agreeing to control information in exchange for favorable information. I imagine even EA's PR team wanted something honest for once as well.

[Chris]

I've taken a few days to think about this post, and a handful of thoughts/questions have came up for me, and these are not directed to anyone in particular - they're food for thought:

- If EA's #1 priority is satisfying their shareholders, their #1 priority in PR is likely giving bloggers/media a picture of their company that enhances the financial portfolio. This seems to have done that. Honestly, if it's a good experience, people will want to write about it... not out of a sense of duty or obligation, but simply out of gratitude and enjoyment.
- Did EA grant permission to the bloggers to spend any 'private time' with their developers (obviously, not someone pre-elected for the job), asking questions about their personal experience working for the company?
- Did anyone inquire about the story of EA Chicago and its sudden closure last year?
- Given that Microsoft and Google have done the same, what does it mean to call a place of business a 'campus'?

That's all to say - it's tough to barrage a gracious host with insulting/tough questions. Bloggers ain't journalists (for the most part) - so for EA's PR team a visit like this is a cakewalk. Everyone gets what they want because a company tour has a way of framing an experience in the best way possible. It's not a case of scheming corporate dishonesty, or blogger naivete, it's simply the way that a company tour works. We all know the feeling of meeting someone for the first time that we're distrustful of, only to see that distrust vanish when we find out that they're just people too.
Journalists don't take that kind of approach - they're forever distrustful of their subject- and we're simply not journalists.

Thanks for the post, Michael. I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences there.

[John]

Hey Mr. Gamer, off-topic but worth mentioning: don't know if you've seen 'Sans Soleil' (recently re-released by Criterion) but there's some interesting and prescient commentary on video game art and culture from 1982 in the midst of LOTS of other talk. Give it a peek sometime!

[Michael Abbott]

@Ben: Ya think? But then why wasn't I invited to visit Tiburon?? ;-)

@JC, @L.B., and @Chris: A few thoughts in response to various points you have each made (and thanks for them, by the way). I did give some thought to whether or not I should go. What was being offered to me?; what was being asked of me?; what limits would be placed on me? And I must say, the whole thing was really quite simple. They flew me out there, put me up, showed me some games, and let me talk to some people. That was pretty much it. No one asked me to write a word about it afterward, and no one asked me to avoid writing about anything. If I was being wooed, then I was either oblivious to the serenade, or it bounced right off me.

I don't mean this arrogantly, but I've studied and worked with some of the most acclaimed people in the theater and film industries. I'm a mid-career professional who isn't looking for a job, and I'm twice the age of several of the people I met at EA. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that an airplane ticket, a tour, and some free stuff don't exactly rock me back on my heels. I enjoyed my visit very much, and I'm grateful for the opportunity, and I think that's an appropriate response.

I liked some of what I saw; other stuff, not so much. As far as I can tell, the real purpose of the visit for me was a closer look at some games with a lot of useful context provided by the designers.

And I guess I would also say that I was drawn a bit closer to the people who spend their professional lives making these games. The process of talking about games and evaluating them has a bit more of a human face to me today than a week ago, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It won't necessarily affect whether or not I like a game, but I expect it will encourage me to think harder about what these designers are earnestly trying to do. Regardless of the critical success or failure of a game, it seems to me we owe these people a fair look at what they're trying to achieve before we judge whether or not it's good. It's really what any artist asks for, and I think we (me included) sometimes forget that.

I'm not suggesting we go soft on bad games; just that we make an honest effort to understand what the designers are striving to do and incorporate that knowledge into the criteria we rely on to assess the final product. I suspect this may be the real reason EA invited us, and if so I would say they succeeded.

Hope that didn't come off as defensive. I've discovered since making my post (mostly through email responses) that a fair number of people thought I ought to have marched out to San Francisco and delivered a scolding lecture to EA on behalf of angry gamers everywhere. Or I should have turned down the invitation and told them to stick it where the DRM don't shine. Obviously, I wasn't interested in doing either, and that seems to have disappointed some people.

Finally, regarding your questions, Chris, I'm very interested in those as well, and maybe someday I'll have a chance to pose them in a different setting. This trip just wasn't the time or place, and believe me, it was all we could do to squeeze everything into the time we had. Your account of what it's like to meet someone and remember that they're just people too rings very true with me, and it's definitely something I experienced more than once while I was there.

Apologies for the long-winded response!

[DM Osbon]

"As for the other bloggers present, it was an interesting mix of 15 or so American and UK writers. Among the ones I recall offhand: GameZone, British Gaming, KiwiBox, Gaming Steve, Infendo, That Video Game Blog, Girls Don't Game, and Nintendojo."

A nice mix there, not sure if EA do anything like this in the UK(am waiting to hear). Gaming Steve! Wow it's been a while since I have read anything from him!

[Denis]

Right, that's what I figured. EA obviously has a core base that does not care to hate on them for sometimes superfluous reasons (e.g. my mother and sometimes myself). Even knowing that their games will be buggy might just deter when we buy the product, not completely negate that proposition. It's just something we know of that particular company--though most (PC) games ship with any number of bugs.

In truth, it's only in the last year that I've really paid attention to who was making a game beyond knowing the Sierra and SSI product line intimately as a child.

[Ben]

What? No Jeff Green remarks from anyone? (How sad is it that I know he hadn't started yet?)

[Suzie]

Good to see your write up :) And it was nice to meet you!

Obviously I did fly out to San Francisco, and from England at that, so the perks were pretty high for me. However, EA does have quite a good track record for staying in touch with the community that plays its games, and it also seemed from what the designers were saying that they did listen to (constructive) criticism, and try and make better games as a result. And - DRM issues aside - EA do make good, solid games. They aren't indie creatives pushing back the boundaries of artistic expression, but they don't pretend to be.

[Leigh]

On one hand, the idea of an "evil empire" in any context is usually hugely fallacious -- every Death Star generally only has one Darth Vader and one Palpatine, and the rest are honest Stormtrooping folks like you and me who believe in what they do and are just trying to do the best job they can.

Okay, that's maybe a lame analogy, but I've never gone in for the "big corporate villainy" idea. I'm sure that EA's employees are all lovely people (in fact, even closer to the top, they still seem lovely), as with any large company that has suffered from a corporate philosophy wrought outside of the average employee's control. In EA's case specifically, whether the ill-advised philosophy even continues to be in effect remains to be seen.

However, I am proud of the people who pointed out that "blogger day" is a really easy "get" as far as good PR for EA. I've seen Microsoft do this as well -- they actually make themselves more available and accessible to so called "community leaders," or as they call them in their marketing meetings, "influencers," because, to put it bluntly, those people are easily sold.

And not because they're dumb or naive -- this is absolutely not to insinuate that Michael is either of those, to say the least -- but because bloggers who write and reach audiences solely for fun and because they care about games are much more desirous of feeling positively about them. Give them a reason to be happy, and they will. Bloggers are not being paid to corner the EA dev staff and ask them the really hard questions, for example.

Nor should they, really. What Michael was given was an opportunity to see the positive aspects of this office and to communicate his good impressions to us -- lucky for us, he's wise enough not to come flying out and say, "Hey! EA's like Disneyland!" just because they were nice to him. I found this piece to be framed pretty fairly -- Michael was very clear about what he did and didn't see and what evidence he did and didn't have to feel good about the trip.

Anyway, my long-winded point is that smart people aren't going to stow valid questions or shelve useful concerns just because they got a free lunch, and nor should Michael or we his readers. But that also doesn't devalue the clear and explicitly-framed presentation of what he found to be an interesting and informative day at a major game company.

However, I have indeed seen community sites that I won't name "sell out" to Microsoft -- buy 'em a few HDTVs and get 'em into an E3 or two expenses paid, and before you know it it's another Xbox community hub. Most publishers, console-makers, developers and what have you will attempt this whenever they have the opportunity. That's just the way it is. For every pragmatic Michael Abbott out there, there's a someone else who will feel just a little bit guilty criticizing EA from now on -- enough to make them shut their mouth, maybe -- now that they had an opportunity to get close to them. And that's just smart business, and that's not just EA, either. I'm glad the discussion participants here know that.

Thanks for the nice and well-written account of your travels, Michael. Looking forward to the rest!

[Whitney]

Thank you, Michael. You summed it up beautifully. EA is a corperate business and what we all saw Friday is an exact representation of that and what EA actually goes through. Many people think they dont give a rat's @$$ about the consumer, when in actuality, the consumer is the main source of life for them. Sure, money is what they need, but they couldnt do it without us. Some may agree, some wont. But, as great as the place is, it really was a chance to see what go on and how passionate these people really are. Like you, that was many of the things that drew me in about the place...

[Chris]

Well put Leigh. I'm interested in Michael's experience as a gaming-thinking-blogging-human-being and not a journalistic dynamo. So, let's hear more about it Michael! :)

[Michael Abbott]

"Gaming-thinking-blogging-human-being" response underway, to be posted later tonight. :-)

Thanks Chris and Leigh (who will *always* be my blogger hero), as well as Whitney, Suzie, Ben, Denis, and DM. I greatly appreciate your input here. I hope I will keep you interested in my forthcoming posts.

Leigh gets it just right, I think. On one hand it's all very easy (travel, see games, return home), but on the other it's a complex web of strategies, motives, good intentions, agendas, etc. I hope, in the end, to bring good information and reasonably informed opinions to my posts. If I can do this, everything else is mostly window dressing.

[Duncan Fyfe]

I find it sort of frustrating that in this situation anyone would ever ascribe to Michael a small-town, naive willingness to be taken for a ride. Yeah, EA's motives are one thing, but because of those "motives", it's like unless Michael comes back with "I punched those EA dudes in the face, I'm blogging from jail" then somebody's wondering if his opinion is suspect. Maybe you can never tell for sure, but certain writers you should be able to trust. Not everyone in the business, but some people have earned credibility.

[Shoinan]

I'm very much enjoying your Simploits - although where did that animal game go?

[Michael Abbott]

@Shoinan: SimAnimals post is on the way. I delayed it because I spent a fair bit of time playing SimCity Creator last weekend, and I thought I should cover it while it's still fresh in my mind.

"Simploits" - I like that. :-)