IT'S IN THE GAME - EA business strategy
- But EA is more than just a successful company in a glamorous industry. It is a model of successful management for companies in any industry. Lots of organizations struggle to turn ideas into blockbuster products. EA pulls it off by honing the way that it develops and markets games: by thinking of its products as emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys.
- Lots of organizations struggle to turn ideas into blockbuster products. EA pulls it off by honing the way that it develops and markets games: by thinking of its products as emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys. By allowing its 12 studios the freedom to innovate while instilling the discipline to meet deadlines..
- In attracting new customers, though, EA has to be careful not to lose its core customers, who don't want to see their beloved games dumbed down for newbies. So EA has begun focusing on the first five minutes of game play. That's how long a customer at Best Buy or Wal-Mart may spend trying out a game. The challenge is to create an experience that leaves these two distinctly different consumers with different impressions of the same game. It must be easy enough for one, yet hard enough for the other.
- It takes a tough company to make entertaining games. "The forgotten aspect of creativity is discipline," says John Riccitiello, president and COO. There is the discipline of understanding the audience through focus groups. The discipline of sharing best practices and technologies across the studios through an intranet library. "There's a saying around here," says Brown in communications. "If somebody develops a better blade of grass in one game, that grass will be in somebody else's game the next day." There's also the discipline of grooming the next generation of executive producers. EA's "emerging leaders" program gives participants firsthand experience in departments outside their own. There is the discipline of studying (well, playing) the competition. "We often know more about the feature set of our competition's products than our competition does," boasts Riccitiello.
- And yet, the staff is encouraged to take creative challenges. Neil Young was the executive producer on Majestic, an online conspiracy thriller that broke the rules of traditional computer games. It was episodic, like The X-Files. It took interactive play to a new level, offering clues via email, fax, and telephone. But EA discontinued the game because of disappointing sales.
- At Electronic Arts, creativity is built on a foundation of management discipline. EA even takes a disciplined approach to the challenge of developing creative leaders. A dozen or so producers and designers at each studio meet throughout the year for a series of workshops. A dancer came in to talk about how movement can be used to express physical and emotional states. A film expert talked about the use of music in silent films to enhance the action. The idea behind the program is simple yet effective, says Andy Billings, vice president of human resources and organizational development: Expose creative leaders to other art forms and new ideas, and see what rubs off.
- And the millions that EA spends on market research to decide what games it should sell lessens the chance of a big bomb. For much of EA's past, that setup made it a model of reliability. But it's hardly a recipe that stokes creativity.
- In the past we have committed to ship dates with large development teams before we had a game design," says Lee. "That is changing....We're going to have the best games and release them when they are ready."
This could mean a higher level of quality for the company's new game titles, but it could also translate into headaches for investors as EA's product pipeline and revenue stream become less of a sure thing. That is probably not music to Wall Street's ears. But it may just be the price EA pays to achieve greater creativity.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_12/b3976086.htm
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/65/ea.html