Interview With Bing Gordon (EA)

djedery writes "I interviewed Bing Gordon (Chief Creative Officer of EA) via email. We discussed game design in academia, outsourcing, game scheduling / budgeting, games for India / China, getting along with marketing, and risks." Decent interview; could be longer but the line about reverse engineering the Genesis is an interesting one, especially considering that some of the current legislative attempts would make that illegal.

Comments

Games have become horrible

[dushkin]

Games, as they are now, are generally horrible. It's a lot like Hollywood nowadays, not just because of movie frenchise games, but also because it costs millions of dollars to just make a game, and then nobody wants to take their chances on a game that is less likely to sell (i.e. isn't really mainstream) so they release pretty much ONLY first person shooters.

yawn@games & lol@interweb

Re:Games have become horrible

[andrewman327]

I think that is where quick thinking smaller developers come in. Sometimes they might generate enough interest that the bigger developers will follow. Other times you still have playable games from obscure companies.

Re:Games have become horrible

[DrSkwid]

Have you played Geometry Wars on the 360 ?

Your opinion is just so generally wrong =)

Perhaps there are only FPS games WHERE YOU LOOK.

This lot are even free :

http://www.megagames.com/news/html/freegames/freeg ames.shtml

Re:Games have become horrible

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is the gamers today. Games have become main stream, and most people are idiots. Most people buy only what they're familiar with, so game companies manufactor the same crap over and over and over again because people will just keep buying it.

One of the most original console games recently was Katamari Damancy, and it still didn't sell as well as Final Fantasy 12, "It Plays the Game For You". That's just sad - more people are willing to buy Version 12 of the same game, but not something truely new and unique.

So we're left with an industry that produces nothing but sequels, because that's what people buy. What're the most anticipated games for the PS3? Metal Gear Solid 4, which is actually the 8th game in the series when you count the original series and the PSP series, and Final Fantasy 13.

Companies are starting to learn, however. Ask your average gamer, and they won't call it "Metal Gear Solid 4" they'll call it "Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots". By dropping numbers and giving games "subtitles" the gaming industry will hope people won't realize that all they're buying are the same game, repackaged with a new title. And it's working...

Re:Games have become horrible

[homer_ca]

It's the same trap that Hollywood movies have fallen into. The production values are very high now. Lots of eye candy and polished artwork. However the huge budgets mean that studios have to play it safe. That means lots of sequels and licensed franchises. No originality.

/. effect = fame

[andrewman327]

"The best grads will have 'published' at least one project to public acclaim, such as 10,000+ downloads..."

10,000? So one link on /. can make a person one of the "best grads."

Overall a great interview. I like where it talks about the need for business acumen in software development. It seems that there are certainly developers who are missing this.

Interesting comment about reverse engineering.

[FatSean]

If the DMCA had been arround in the early 1980's...would IBM still hold a monopoly on the PC BIOS? Think of all we would have missed out on. Apple probably would have folded up for lack of users if the Mac clones industry didn't happen...although they'd like you to forget that

Re:Interesting comment about reverse engineering.

[Anonymous Coward]

what good is a computer without software? the clones increased the user base, allowing for more companies to enter into the software market for apple. Remember apple being the king of "desktop publishing"? Did it get there by hardware alone?

Re:Interesting comment about reverse engineering.

[91degrees]

I'm not sure. which part of the DMCA would clean room reverse engineering the PC BIOS violate? It's not part of a copy protection system after all.

Re:Interesting comment about reverse engineering.

[gEvil (beta)]

Not to mention that the clones were licensees of the MacOS and Apple hardware. Even had the DMCA existed, there wouldn't have been any violations to speak of.

my question

[gEvil (beta)]

Chief Creative Officer, huh? I guess my question is exactly how much "creativity" is involved with incrementing a number with each new game release?

Funny guy

[El_Muerte_TDS]

The trick to finishing any creative project on schedule is to ship whatever is done by a given date. This is what advertising agencies usually do with the commercials they create. Of course, no one remembers that it was on time after it fails miserably.
And ofcourse all your customers are happy with half completed games.

We reverse-engineered the electronics in a "clean room" environment, because Sega wouldn't give us licensee terms that we could live with.
And yet they set up terms others can't live with. Haven't they learned anything?!.

I think our industry's greatest challenge is to transition from technology-based to creativity-based experiences. In other words, we should all become like Miyamoto! Easier said than done.
Uhm.. EA doesn't really have a track record for both technology-based or creativity-based experiences. I think they'll have a long road ahead of them.
Oh and ofcourse publishers should grant the creators of creativity-based experiences some slack, otherwise it won't work ofcourse. how does this go along with "it compiles, ship it" mentality from the first citation?

Genesis

[Threni]

---
EA's biggest risk was preparing to launch a lineup of games for the Sega Genesis without a license. We reverse-engineered the electronics in a "clean room" environment, because Sega wouldn't give us licensee terms that we could live with. If this had not worked, and the games hadn't sold, (Sega agreed to license terms the evening before our public introduction of games), EA would probably have gone the way of early computer game leaders like Broderbund and Sierra. It was truly a "bet the company" decision.
---

Codemasters (UK based company) did that too. Sega/Nintendo settled out of court, and the "secret" deal was to pretend they'd paid or something, otherwise the people who actually did pay would get pissed.

Re:Genesis

[Fred Or Alive]

No, Codemasters has always been a British company, and I think you're thinking of them (or at least their North American distributer) winning a lawsuit in Canada before they won the US one over the NES Game Genie. I seem to remember that Codemasters stuff was distributed in America by the makers of Micro Machines, and therefore Codemasters got the licence to make the Micro Machines games, which was also their first Mega Drive game, which led to the suit described by the grandparent.

This is barely an improvement

[saboola]

I read Interview with Bing! 2006 and Interview with Bing! 2007 seems to be just a rehashing of the same ideas as the prior just with updated information. Ever since EA has gotten exclusivity to the Interview with Bing! license the whole series has gone down hill.

What a challenge!

[Miguelzinho]

Our industry's biggest business challenge is to figure out how to convince consumers to pay "fair value" for the increased quality we are delivering. We need to monetize our "excess hours" of satisfied play. Our best games are unbelievably cheap on a per hour basis, compared to, say $1.00 per hour for paperback books, and $5-10 an hour for movies and DVD's.

Translating: Our industry's biggest business challenge is to figure out how to rise our prices, so getting exclusive use of trademarks like NBA, FIFA, NFL, NHL makes us the only one, and we can put the price we want. We will buy more and more small and good game studios to! Well, if you want a game, you will need to buy from us, this is our industry's biggest business challenge.

How can we rape customers... more?

[Guysmiley777]

Our industry's biggest business challenge is to figure out how to convince consumers to pay "fair value" for the increased quality we are delivering. We need to monetize our "excess hours" of satisfied play. Our best games are unbelievably cheap on a per hour basis, compared to, say $1.00 per hour for paperback books, and $5-10 an hour for movies and DVD's.

Die in a fire you ass! Fine, as soon as gaming PCs/consoles are as cheap as the equipment needed to read a book you use that as a valid comparison. And as far as "excess hours", cut-n-paste level grinding and mindless drudgery does NOT count per-hour the same as watching a movie. Fucktard. I think we found one of the reasons EA sucks so hard.

Re:How can we rape customers... more?

[drinkypoo]

Our best games are unbelievably cheap on a per hour basis, compared to, say $1.00 per hour for paperback books, and $5-10 an hour for movies and DVD's.

Your average game seems to take about 15-30 hours to complete. Let's call it 30, to be charitable. They cost about fifty bucks MSRP. That's $1.60 an hour.

I can read your average novel in about six hours - and I mean read it, not skim, and a book I've never read before, to boot. A paperback is eight bucks today. That's $1.33 an hour. I admit though, I'm a freak. It will take most people twice that, at least. (They trained me with a speed reading machine in grammar school.) So maybe $0.60 to $0.70 an hour. That's much better than twice the value of the video game.

I'll watch a movie about three times before it is likely to never be watched again. Sometimes I watch them more, but that's usually a practical limit. Call it six hours for $15. $2.50/hr, so that holds up.

Of course, most games are completed in less time. (I don't care much about sports games, except for driving games, which can last much longer - but I played need for speed underground for a few months top, I've been playing gran turismo games for years.) If it's 15 hours of gameplay, then even a slow reader can get as much seat time value from a paperback book. And if you buy them used, you can get twice as much value :)

You're looking in the wrong place

[BlackCobra43]

The creativity stems from figuring out which game developer they feel like purchasing, bleeding dry then discarding next like the financial vampires they are.

Re:I could never take seriously a man named Bing..

[CDLewis]

This coming from SkunkPussy ...

Re:Bing Rocks

[mad.frog]

If by "rocks" you mean "is a fucking tool", then yes, Bing rocks and rocks hard.

But then I'm guessing you haven't experienced his management style directly.