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EA News EA Sports Twitter EA Twitter The Sims 3 TwitterAccording 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.
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/
Every summer we challenge our EA Interns/Co-ops in the United States and Canada to compete in an annual Video Competition! The theme of this year’s contest was to show us why an Internship/Co-op at EA “ROCKS” by using our games, technologies, and studio locations in a video. And… to make the contest a little bit more interesting… we added bragging rights and… a custom engraved iPad® for members of the winning team!
The videos were judged on several criteria – creativity, the use of EA products, illustrating the “Intern/Co-op experience” at EA, the best use of a studio location, and the video that encompassed the most fun/humour, as well as best use of technology/FX/art in their video.
As always, the teams did an awesome job, but there unfortunately can only be one winner. So, we are happy to announce that this year’s overall winner (and the winners of a shiny new iPad®) is ….Team Two from EA Canada!! Congratulations EAC Team Two!!! And… let’s not forget the team from our Tiburon (Orlando, Florida) studio who came in just behind the EAC Team Two in the judging. The members of the Tiburon team each collected $200 gift cards for their 2nd place finish. Congratulations to the Tiburon team!!!
Last, but not least, we want to give a huge shout out to all of the Interns/Co-ops that participated in this year’s event!!! A special giant high five goes out to the team from EA Redwood Shores who had the most creative video of the bunch and an over-the-top fist bump goes out to Team One from EA Canada for best showcasing their studio location in their video. Once again, we were so impressed with all of the videos that were created in just a matter of weeks. Great work everyone! They are all amazing!
EA Canada Team 2 – Winners
2nd Place Winners – Team Tiburon: Best showcase of intern experience
EA Canada Team 1: Best use of location
EA Redwood Shores: Best use of creativity and humor!
Tags: Career paths, Opportunities, People
Tags: Montreal, studio, Visceral Games
EArl: We’re pretty excited that you’ve taken some time from your very busy schedule to have a chat with us about your career. To kick it off, tell us a little about what got you into video games as a career in the first place.
Diarmid Clarke in the spotlight at EA India's 2010 Holiday Party
DC: That’s a good story! My dad brought home an Atari 2600 back in the day and I played Combat until my fingers, literally, bled. There was no turning back at that point as I had fallen hopelessly in love with games. While still in school I convinced my parents to pick up a 48K Spectrum with the promise that it had enormous educational advantages – fortunately my dad was destined to be a huge gamer himself, so no further convincing was required. At the time we lived in a very small, very old, town in the UK where strangely enough, the head of Microprose lived. Microprose had just set up in town and I literally spent 6 months hanging around their doorstep trying to get a job. As I was an expert in Ultima 4 – that Microprose had just picked up in a distribution deal with Origin (acquired by EA some years later) – they asked me to do a sales presentation on the game to the executive team. Here I was, 16, bad hair and acne, presenting to a group of gaming executives. It wasn’t long before they gave me a job in QA, which of course included serving coffee and fixing the license plate on an exec’s car among many other such tasks. But for me it was certain that I wasn’t going anywhere else, that it was a life in games for me from that moment onward. I decided that I was going to be a game producer/designer.
EArl: You are now the Studio Head of our Hyderabad, India studio – congratulations! What prompted you to you make such a big geographical (from Canada to India) and career (from console to mobile) move?
DC: Thanks! Making such a big drastic decision does require one to have a certain mind-set, be incredibly adaptable and not need to be surrounded by the familiar. I’ve made pretty big decisions throughout my career – starting off from going from a tiny village in the UK where if your family haven’t lived there for 100 years you are still considered to be an outsider – to working up to the big metropolis of London at a fairly early age. I worked in external development for a chunk of my career, so I love the opportunity that the games industry provides for one to see and experience many different things. I’ve always been somewhat of a risk taker when it comes to my life and career, and I feel it has certainly paid off with some amazing and challenging experiences.
As for moving to India, it literally felt like I went from the coldest place on earth (EA BioWare in Edmonton, Canada) to the hottest (Hyderabad, India), but I was looking to try something entirely different and challenge myself in a way I had not done before. I wanted to not pass up on the opportunity for such a challenge. I get easily bored with the mundane, so this opportunity presented a great contrast from a safe and predictable existence and I hope that my time here will prove to leave a positive legacy within the studio.
As for moving from console development to mobile – the mobile industry is incredibly fascinating, it is changing extremely rapidly and the audiences are wide and diverse. In my opinion, mobile gaming is really the most different and exciting thing to happen to the games industry in a long time. Moving from PS2 to PS3 is primarily nothing more than a hardware upgrade and I could familiarize myself with the new platform in a week. However the learning involved within the mobile, social gaming space is never ending – and this fascinates and challenges me. The fast turnaround of projects is also appealing, where a game like Mass Effect takes several years to make (and it is indeed an incredible game), there is something exciting about making a game in less than a year and having several projects on the go at once The mobile industry is much like going back 10 – 15 years where a lot of the fun old ideas, and ability to take more creative chances, are coming back and we can perfect the game mechanics to fit with the new platform technology.
EArl: Give us a taste of what it is like living and working in India as a foreigner, as well as a glimpse into your team in India.
DC: It’s bloody hot right now, up to 100F at the moment and getting hotter, so certainly a contrast to the -40 I experienced in Edmonton. India is a place of huge contrasts, events and views. Things can be, on the one hand, unbelievably frustrating with things like power cuts on a regular basis and having to do without certain amenities, like being unable to drink the tap water. Yet on the plus side the people here on our EA India team have a willingness to learn and an enthusiasm that is very rare. They have no arrogance and are passionate about wanting to show that world class games can come out of India. The Indian people make living here a tremendously rewarding experience. For example, my water ran out in my home and within 10 minutes I had 3 handymen arrive to fix the problem – at no charge. It is refreshing on many levels living and working among such people.
EArl: What EA India studio successes under your leadership are you particularly proud of?
Diarmid and India team kicking back at 2010 Holiday Party
DC: Along with my amazing team here in India we were able to produce Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which ended up getting the highest Harry Potter game rating from Pocket Gamer, along with an award nomination. (Thanks should also be giving to our Romanian studio on this with helping with the core technology) It proved to that the team here India does indeed have the talent and motivation to develop world-class titles, and this is an exciting time for the studio.
EArl: How do you feel EA currently supports your ability to be successful, and how it has supported your career overall over the years?
DC: What has been excellent in the mobile team is that they let me just get on with it. We have general goals and shared product knowledge and we have weekly calls with the UK as well as LA for key milestone points – but beyond that I am basically allowed to make decisions here on the ground and do what I see fit. So the hands off approach EA provides allows us to continue to be successful here with the team. Even though we are geographically removed from the US and UK hubs, the contact is regular and consistent. The mobile team execs, Chris Gibbs, Travis Boatman and Barry Cottle make a point of coming out here on a regular basis to have face time, which shows the human approach to leadership at EA. The only thing that is missing here in India is a strong game development community for social interaction with which we can exchange ideas and who possess the level of quality and experience of EA. The gaming industry is still very young here comparatively but I firmly believe we have the best studio in India!
As for how EA has supported my career, that is an interesting question! This is the third time I have come back to EA, so to speak, in my career, each time in an entirely different role. Back in the UK the decision to move to EA was based on the feeling that EA was bringing order to the wild west of games, it was clear at the time we had to learn how to make great games with greater predictability (the industry is littered with the corpses of both Developers and Publishers who have failed to achieve this). What I have consistently gotten out of working at EA is the insight into how games are made, that 80% of making games is doing things correctly, smarter and faster. It is not rocket science. Then 20% of course is the magic component. Just being at EA facilitates learning as there is a depth and breadth of experience here second to none. I have a huge amount of respect for the guys in Mobile – as I said earlier they let me get on with it at my end – and this cuts down on what I call the “stupid loop” but provide valuable insight that allows our team to keep pushing the quality bar up higher. I have worked for guys in the past where they had no passion or interest in games, yet they are up there making redundant, irrational decisions. That is far from the case with the mobile team here at EA. It continues to be a fascinating and challenging run!
EArl: Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, Diarmid – certainly fascinating — wishing you continued success with your projects at EA Mobile in India!
DC: Cheers!
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