EA Doesn’t Insist, It Inspires

In a recent interview with Develop, EA Games Label President Frank Gibeau declared that EA inspires its partners to include online components in their games, rather than insist they must.

“Well you say ‘insist’, I say inspire,” Gibeau said. “I don’t go up to every game team and ask – what is your deathmatch mode? I look at how to make games a broader idea with online services.”

This touches on a fundamental truth of doing business. Creativity is well and good, but at the end of the day, you have to bring in the money.

“It’s one of my core cultural studio values to allow developers to decide more on what they want to build,” Gibeau said. “And a studio’s creative call needs to be balanced against a commercial imperative, and if you look at online these days – that’s the place to be.”

Gibeau sees it as his responsibility to allow developers to make the game they want to make, but also ensure they can hit that blockbuster status.

“Game makers, the really good ones, they want to make great games but they also want to make blockbusters. One of the things they need to do is balance that out – I have the right team to help them,” Gibeau said. “I volunteer you to speak to EA’s studio heads; they’ll tell you the same thing. They’re very comfortable moving the discussion towards how we make connected gameplay.”

And this is totally different from controlling a developer’s creative vision.

“I always found it a big problem when a game’s executive producer would come up to me and ask what I should do next. I would always respond that’s not my job. You’re job is to come up with the creative vision, mine is to edit and tweak so it’s a bigger commercial opportunity,” Gibeau said. “I’m very clear about that.”

[via Develop Online]