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.

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/

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!

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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!

EA employees around the globe recently received an announcement from our Global SVP of Human Resources, Gabrielle Toledano, encouraging any and all to be fearless in our approach to furthering our careers – within EA.  EA has an active Internal Mobility program in place that encourages all employees to take full control of our career development, and partnered with our management teams, engage in our fully transparent process of internal applications and transfers.  There are some guidelines of course, but the bottom line is that EA is committed to facilitating this process, underscored by the belief that our organization is strongest when employees are openly encouraged to grow within.  Way to make career dreams possible, EA!

EA and the Japan Relief Effort.

Last month’s devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan were felt very close to home within the EA community.  Our team in Japan is fortunately safe, but they are facing a daunting and uncertain future as their country begins rebuilding and recovering.  EA teams from around the world, including Battlefield Heroes, Playfish, Pogo, The Sims, Ultima Online and FIFA Ultimate Team have implemented some creative ways to reach out and help those in need.  Some of those campaigns included:

• In-game micro-transactional features were modified to allow players to circumvent EA and go directly to Japan relief organizations.
• At EA Canada, the facilities were used to pack meals for “Kids Against Hunger” – which were then sent directly to those in need in Japan
• EA set up a donation matching program for employees donating to select organizations

In the face of such tremendous challenge, our employees and their families in Japan have voiced their gratitude for the contributions being made by the EA team to the aid of their nation.

EA Romania – the success story behind the games!

EA is a truly global company with operations scattered all over the world. No matter whether it is a small regional sales office in Europe or a large development Studio in the US, one thing that EA people over the world share is passion, passion to deliver the world’s best games!  One location that so proudly typifies this is the Romanian team in Bucharest.

Nestled away in the South-Eastern corner of Europe, Romania is a charming and relatively small country that has gone through a massive transformation over the last 20 years, turning it into a truly modern country.  With a reformed health and educational system, a much lower crime rate than most of its European counterparts and an influx of foreign investment, Romania is now genuinely a great place to live, work, and build games. Add to that the ability to ski in winter and chill out on the beach in summer, and it should come as no surprise that EA has been based in Romania’s capital city Bucharest for more than 5 years and employs top quality gaming talent.

Originally a Jamdat office (a mobile games company that EA acquired in 2005) with a handful of employees, EA Romania has exploded over the last 5 years into a 600 person strong strategic development & testing hub housed in new state-of-the-art offices. What makes EA Romania really special is its people and their genuine passion for creating the world’s greatest entertainment. This passion can be felt all around the office. Walls are lined with popular characters from EA’s games and people can be heard keenly discussing work (i.e. making games!) all over whether it is during their lunch break or over a game of fussball. EA Romania lives and breathes games.

A small army of top artists, designers and software engineers proudly develop games for mobile handsets including the latest platforms such as iPad and iPhone, and the PC & Console testing center ensures the world can enjoy bug free games from some of EA’s best known franchises (Need for Speed, Burnout, Medal of Honour, etc. etc.).

If you want a piece of this then visit www.jobs.ea.com to see the exciting employment opportunities on offer. A simple click will get you closer than you think to a guaranteed unique life and learning experience!

EALA and EA Redwood Shores shared some pictures of their end of year holiday celebrations.  Check out the fun our employees had! 

To learn about the Trevor Project

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/about-trevor/organization