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EA News EA Sports Twitter EA Twitter The Sims 3 TwitterPlainclothes warriors join the battle among Jedi and Sith in the first ever lightsaber freeze mob duel in the heart of New York’s Times Square. Watch as over 100 fans joined the battle to celebrate the launch of STAR WARS™: The Old Republic on 12.20.11
According to a new survey published by Universum, an employee data and consulting company, EA ranks #15 overall in a list of companies that young professionals want to work for. We’re #7 of the technology companies listed, too! We are honored to be included on this list–it’s terrific to see young workers excited about EA and the opportunities we offer. See the entire list.
We went to GeekGirlCon in Seattle last month and spent time with some of our favorite people–Geek Girls! In this video, women into all kinds of geekery share why they love being geeks. Share your Geek Girl pride–tell us why you love being a geek.
You may not know me by name, but I’m sure you’ve played games that I’ve worked on. My name is Fiona Sperry and I’m the studio director at Criterion Games best known for the highly popular Burnout series of driving games.
I recently joined the WIGJ (Women in Games Jobs) Advisory Board and was asked to deliver a keynote on ‘How to get to the top as a woman in gaming’. So on September 22nd 2011, I attended the first annual WIGJ Conference in London, England with over 150 attendees from the games industry throughout Europe, as well as a large number of students looking for advice.
During my keynote, I shared some advice with the audience which is relevant to men as it is to women. In particular, 1) do what you love – the most successful people in the world share one characteristic – they care more than anyone else. It’s hard to care about something you’re not passionate about and 2) do whatever job you do to the best of your abilities – every task, however menial it may appear, is a reflection of you and your standards. Attack every task with the same dedication and passion to do it well and other, more senior people will notice and respect you for it.
I strongly believe that you have to take responsibility for your own journey and work hard to achieve your goals. I joined Criterion Software Limited as the only woman in the development studio and as a producer who had never worked in games. Yet within three years I was running the studio, renamed ‘Criterion Games’ and to date it is amongst the most successful studios in the UK.Today I continue to run Criterion Games but have also recently been given the opportunity to run all the driving games within the EA Games Label.
I was inspired and energized by the women I met at the conference but I was mortified at how so many of the students felt they were facing an impossible challenge to get into the industry. Fortunately EA has made it a priority to increase its graduate employment by significant levels. EA also advocates increased diversity, be it the hiring of women or minorities as one of its key tenants when it comes to building the company. The world today is a very different place and we NEED new blood, different viewpoints, and diverse cultural backgrounds within the company to bring fresh thinking, new ideas, and perspective to ensure EA can remain competitive.
Happily there are more women in game development today but we still need to increase our numbers. I am more passionate, today than at any point in my career about helping women succeed in gaming. The message to women is clear – it’s important not to let being a woman in the games industry be an obstacle, but instead be what makes you valuable.
If you’re interested in working at EA and you’d like more information on positions available around the world, please check out EA’s Jobs Site.
Starting this week, 14-year-old Lexi Peters will be stick handling past men twice her size as she plays in the starting lineup for the Buffalo Sabres. Or the Vancouver Canucks. Or any NHL team the 90-pound left-winger chooses.
Because when video game publisher Electronic Arts releases the latest edition of its popular NHL series on Tuesday, Lexi will be the first female in its virtual hockey roster.
Hockey is attracting more female players, but when young skaters like Lexi turned to the leading NHL video game, the custom player characters they could build in the game came with many different looks – so long as they were male.
“I asked my dad, ‘Why aren’t there girls in the NHL video game?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know, write a letter.’ So, I did,” Lexi told the Globe and Mail from her home in Buffalo, N.Y.
She sent a typewritten letter to the executives of one the largest video game makers in the world, asking them to add women players.
She wrote: “It is unfair to women and girl hockey players around the world, many of them who play and enjoy your game. I have created a character of myself, except I have to be represented by a male and that’s not fun.”
For those who have never tried the game, players can choose everything from their team and players to who controls the puck. They can also create characters of their own, picking hair and eye colours and other details. Those characters were all men.
“My younger brother got to create a character that looked just like him. I had never been able to experience that,” says Lexi.
The 4 foot 11 teen has played hockey for four years. She and a teammate spent hours creating a whole custom hockey team, modeling the players after their own all-girls team, the Purple Eagles. The best they could do was give the characters long “hockey” hair.
“We looked like men,” she says.
The first response she got back from Electronic Arts was disappointing. But she figured at least she’d tried.
“I heard back a few weeks later and they told me it couldn’t happen because it has to go through the NHL.”
What she didn’t know was that the president of EA Sports had forwarded her letter to David Littman, the lead producer of the company’s NHL game. His reaction was different.
“Lexi’s letter was a wake-up call,” Mr. Littman told the Globe and Mail. “Here’s a growing audience playing our NHL game and we hadn’t done anything to capture them.”
Mr. Littman then did some stick handling of his own: finding the budget to build her into the game, as well as getting permission from the NHL and EA’s legal department.
Then EA Sports gave Lexi the news. Not only were they adding a female character option, but they wanted Lexi to play the part of the “default” female player that gamers would then be able to customize.
“I was so excited,” says Lexi. “My dad called my grandpa immediately, who called my Uncle Chris, like a chain reaction.”
Users can tailor the female character by changing hair, eye colour and the name on the jersey if they want, just as with male players.
It is a sensible business move in a competitive video-game market that’s worth an estimated $20-billion worldwide. But it also marks the progress of female hockey players.
“It’s a big change and it’s exciting to see, because so many girls pay hockey now,” said Manon Rhéaume, the only woman to ever play in the real-world NHL.
Ms. Rhéaume was signed to the Tampa Bay Lightning as a goalie in 1992 and played in two exhibition games. She now runs a foundation that offers scholarships to young women in sports and promotes girls’ hockey.
“I think we’re at a place where women in hockey are more accepted. People are putting more money into girls’ hockey and the growth we’re seeing in the sport is mainly from girls, not boys.”
Hockey Canada, the national organization that oversees administration and development of the sport, has numbers that back that up. In 1990, there were about 5,000 women and girls playing the sport. Today, there are more than 100,000.
“The two gold medals in the past Olympics has been a huge factor,” says Francis Dupont, communications officer with Hockey Canada. “There’s been a lot more attention on women’s hockey media-wise in the past five to 10 years and more coaches and programs to grow the sport.”
Of course, NHL purists can still play the video game as men. But Lexi is hoping they give the women a chance. And that the boys at her school who don’t take girls’ hockey seriously change their minds.
The big question now: how will she choose who to play as? Herself, or her favourite NHL star, Alex Ovechkin?
“I’ll put us on the same team.”
- Michelle Simick, The Globe And Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/girl-wins-bid-to-play-virtual-self-in-ea-sports-nhl-12-video-game/article2161727/
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