Megadrive1988
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DICE 2004: EA on Next-Gen
Company president Bing Gordon speaks on designing games for the next round of platforms.
March 04, 2004 - Early Friday morning at the annual DICE summit in Las Vegas, Electronic Arts COO and founder Bing Gordon held a conference on "designing games for next-generation machines." The straightforward and to-the-point executive, dressed in casual attire and sporting long hair, spoke confidently about the next round of gaming, unafraid to level criticism at competitors and even allies.
Gordon touched on subjects including new technology, which he believes will continue to grow more and more advanced, enabling developers to create software that isn't possible today. He spoke on strategies -- what has worked and what hasn't. And he talked about the transitional period from current consoles to those in the next-generation.
Oppositely, he noted that while technology is a major factor in new software, it's still overshadowed by content. "Being from Silicon Valley, I like to think that technology drives everything, but upon reflection I think the actual driver for new gamers is when we bring a new hobby to videogames." Gordon cited a number of successful EA properties as prime examples.
He joked -- or perhaps he didn't -- that EA had paid "$50 million-plus" to John Madden to secure the announcer's endorsement for its top-selling Madden NFL Football franchise over the last two decades.
Gordon detailed the process of delivering a new hardware to the market. "Hardware companies come to us for about a two-year period acting as if they like us," he said, referring to the transitional period where first-party hardware makers Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo try to coax big publishers into developing software for their respective systems. He jadedly added that, after the "honeymoon" phase was over first-parties generally went back to making life "miserable" for third-party contributors.
"Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are sitting around right now and spending multiple billions of dollars to bring a new platform to the market. And they hate that," he noted. He insinuated that this was a factor in Sony's decision to delay the arrival of its PlayStation 3 console.
Gordon referred to upcoming gamers as the "IM Generation." He called them the "Run Lola Run" audience, multi-tasking actions such as Internet browsing, music listening, IM chatting and watching television. He joked that if parents try to take even one of these options away from them their grades go down. He also indicated that it's these types of gamers that companies will endeavor to please in the next round of gaming.
He listed several taglines for what he referred to as "piggyback hardware marketing." The first was to follow the money. Second, prove the hardware position. Third, support positions. Next, avoid the losers. He used Sega's Dreamcast as an example.
He listed some of the slogans and philosophies of hardware makers. Most notable, he pointed out Nintendo's decision to emphasize a cheaper price over "important features" with its GameCube console. "It may be rethinking that [philosophy] after GameCube," he said. He also noted that Nintendo failed to have major first-party titles available at the launch of the system and added: "I'm sure it's rethinking that after GameCube."
Gordon talked about "why the PC game market sucks." He said PC transitions are boring and that the PCs has lost the leadership perception -- that consoles are seen by most as the 3D leaders.
The EA executive closed the presentation by talking about nine next-generation features that will really separate the next round of consoles. He listed everything from 100 times the physics, the ability to model Pixar quality characters, hydrodynamics, surfaces, mass, high-resolution organics, and more. He indicated that characters in next-gen games will have realistic eyes, hair, skin, and muscles -- that graphics will look well "beyond Doom 3."
He also said that next-generation titles would have "living worlds," which he called "Grand Theft Auto on steroids." He suggested that NPC characters would also be far more advanced, taking inspiration from The Sims. More awareness, memory, complex motives, learning, individualized agents with goals and more.
http://cube.ign.com/articles/496/496703p1.html
