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EA Cancels Tiberium, Cites Quality Issues
by Leigh Alexander
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October 1, 2008
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Citing ongoing quality problems, Electronic Arts has terminated its in-progress FPS set in the Command & Conquer universe, Tiberium, which had been in development at EA Los Angeles.
"The game was not on track to meet the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games Label," says EA spokesperson Mariam Sughayer in an official statement to Gamasutra, commenting that "...there were fundamental problems with the design of the game that the team struggled to correct."
She added: "A lower quality game is not in the best interest of the consumers and would not succeed in this market."
When EA Games boss Frank Gibeau recently spoke to Gamasutra about EALA, he told us a strategy was in place to address the studio's past quality issues, and specifically mentioned "evaluating" Tiberium, along with the Medal of Honor brand.
EALA is also developing Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 and the titles resulting from the publisher's deal with Steven Spielberg, and has just signed a deal with 300 director Zack Snyder.
The company says that further delaying Tiberium to resolve its issues was not an option, as it had already delayed the title out to fiscal year 2010. The company also declined to specify the financial investment in the game and says it has no plans to do so.
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Tiberium woes:
A Designer who had originally built only 1 mission on Halo was promoted by then manager John Batter, who had a hard on for Hollywoodesque big talent. John poured milliions into James Bond over Medal of Honor. This mean that less experienced personal got bigger salaries than the MOH teams. The designer "Dan Orzlak" experience on 1 mission in Halo was quickly used to calm DANJAQ's butterflies. He was promoted to Design Director. Although very personable, he only understood Halo's systems superficially. Why? Beause he was never a system's designer. Boom, fast forward to the next project.
The Producer pretty boy from marketing (insert his name) and Dan came up with a game called "vertical" that never saw the light of day. Neil young then moved them to Tiberium. While Neil squashed the old guard and created his own kingdom, FEAR fell upon all those working on Tiberuim. In other words no one wanted to make a design decision.
5 years later, Dan and team had changed the weapons 5 times. Hired a myriad of clown hack jr designers, all who wanted to be the "AI designer!" Dan was let go, and in came Tim Coolidge, who left after 2 weeks.
The company tried to hire experienced designers instead they hired a couple of more less than jr designers to save the project, one was let go after 1 week (please post why) I believe they came from now soon defunct Spark Unlimited.
The new lead designer Andre Garcia was left at the helm with 1 month to save the a doomed project full of hacks. BTW Andre was probably the only real working experienced dev on the team.
At the same time, MOH's creative director Jon Paquette who never wanted to be a designer in the first place, left to his long wishes of becoming a wannabe writer. The MOH team for the first time ever, used the same technology to create a prototype. You see every previous MOH game the engineer felt compelled to "refactor" and "redo" the entire engine, those rooks!
So the MOH demo rocked making Tiberuim team look like they've had their amateur thumbs up their nice asses. What are the execs and stock holders to think? James bond gone to ATVI because of a misplaced design director and now millions lost because of a jr team?!
In other news, ATVI is literally violently working on their newest Call of Duty which from what I heard is going to be the most VIOLENT game ever! Not a surprise that HBO wanted the same thing for Band of Brothers Pacific, which was canned.
Will COH PAcific ship at the same time as Speilberg's new BAnd of Brothers Pacific (Which happens to be super violent as well?)
YOU BETCHA!
Will we see cannabilism and toasted people?
YOU BETCHA!
This goes to show you as my predictions said.
-EALA will shut down, the RTS team is great but only sells 1mill units, hardly enough to stay in business for EA
-Tiberuim shuts down, lays off jrs, moves experienced to MOH
-MOH team is moved to Pandemic, keeps same GM as Exec Prod. on new IP.
-EA Casual, which has now hired a horrible ex Brasher SR Prod Trujillo, will also move to Pandemic.
All in all the house that MOH built has fallen to horrible hands of horrible Producers and every worst hiring practices. Hey EA next time check mobygames on the resumes!
Last be painfully honest and have high intergrity values always.
Wish those kids the best.
The thing is, Tiberium, along with MoH and all EALA/EA games, have one core fundamental problem, and that is an unnecessary and bloated amount of management. They not only gobble up the project budget while they contribute nothing to the project but needless and uninformed change, they at times only can survive by doing so, and thus are forced to, less they appear "uninvolved."
While many of the above statements are true, one statement needs corrected. An opinion shared across the team except by a select few, is that the "jr." designers, some with 10 years or more experience in the industry, were far more knowledgeable and proven than their lead Orzulak, or his student of the fine art of smoke screening, Andre Garcia. This was not only supported but reaffirmed by other level designers brought on loan from the Medal of Honor team, also with far more experience than their leads. Since you talk of MobyGames'ing a resume, you'll find Andre Garcia, a QA tester for nearly a decade, quickly went from nothing, to a design lead position, thanks to his friend Dan Orzulak.
However, despite the narrow focus of the above poster, the demise of this project, and others, was in the hands of a higher pay grade than is likely visible to the above poster. Previous games such as MoH:A survived even less competent design leaders, such as the aformentioned Jon Paquette, a creative director with even less design experience than Orzulak. No, this would not ordinarily be enough to sink a ship at the well funded studio...
The real story of Tiberium's fate was a project being led by these incompetent leaders, as is par for the course at EALA, but was recognized as an opportunity for a new team of management to make a powerplay for their own development team. At first they made the right moves to win over the crowd, eliminating Orzulak, "pretty boy EP," and their "no action is the best action" technical director, along with demoting the similar philosophy senior development director in one fell swoop. The team rejoiced, and invested their full faith into the newcomers...
While their hostile takeover of the team would include the clause they had to save the project, it was in their best interest NOT to be credited with the mess left behind by their incompetent predecessors. When the title ships, no one outside the studio knows what really happened on the project, all they know is who is in the credits. It's one thing to have your name on a disaster, but it's entirely another if you didn't create it.
Every step of the way, the new management team sabotaged Tiberium from intentional failings of milestones from day one, to laying off of key contributers to its success so far at the desperate end. If you want to know who wasn't pulling their weight on Tiberium, they were the last ones left. Up until the last day you could walk around the office and look into almost any cube at random, witnessing people surf the web, due to purposely misscheduled workloads. If the above poster wants to know why that one designer was let go, it was because he was the last one doing his position, and without him, the work could not be done.
This is how the new management team brokered their own team, and at the same time quietly took Tiberium out back and put it down, so they would not be known as the owners. They got field promoted to captains, then sunk their damaged ship, so they could take their new titles on to a fresh vessel, and killed all the witnesses.
No need to be upset... it's just business.
Jason Alejandre "Dre" was another designer of high experience, nearly 10 years who was misplaced creativly. He just recently quit.
How can a designer of 10 years be ignored? In the past there were many other great designers in EALA's history that were misplaced from Lynn Henson (the original designer on MOH) to Aaron Casillas (yes old man c, always pushed for the facts, best levels at EALA too), Johnson (24hour worker), Castro (script master), Church, Bass, Berger, Dell the list goes on and on.
The problem was the EA PRoducer crew, who are these fucks? I mean these are people who can't engineer, cant make art or design, so guess what they produce and run the shop...how stoooooopid. Versus look at COH4 EXEC PROD Sam Nourani, he came from teh depths of QA hell for years, he earned his keep....EA prods are just armchair gamers. There is a reason why COH4 was #1, because it was made by people who love games and put REAL time into the industry. EA not so much. Look at PAtrick Gilmore and his cronies they are just pretty boys, they don't know games, period. Rex Dickson? He was the cause of the fall of Turok 3, WTF?! Now on MOH, check mobygames, unless he lied on his resume like the other half of the EALA crew.
One of the greatest goof ball stories about designers had to be the bungling on the recruitment of Jeremy Luyties and Mike Denny. Two designers who were offered 5g to move to EA from Grey Matter on the basis that 5g is EA. How STUPID!
I was peronally angry at this bullshit move on two create designes and tactical hires. 5g because its EA? Gimme a fucking break. Should have given them 20g each and destroy ATVI.
HR was at fault here, and upper management should have offered each 20g's. Why? Because each eventually went on to work on MOH's competition and one of them is now the Creative Director on the next James Bond, which EA lost. You see what I mean, superior incompentance at EALA. That HR person is now working at Microsoft on the HAlo team, expect more stupidity.
Imagine that 20g inc salary would have disrupted ATVI's business for the next 8 years! But I guess not...EA rooks.
Andre stepped in when Coolidge left after a couple weeks to goto Monolith. What could he do? Coolidge move was probably a salary raise, I can not blame him at all. The grades at EALA have been jacked up for years. I personally know and heard that the jr designers were fighting over all wanting to be the AI or the "systems guy." Stupid.
On Jon Paquette, well, he was much loved by management, to the point that one time he recieved "employee of the month" even though he was out sick with ulcers for that entire month! I've personally also sat in a lot of meeting where these guys LIED through their fucking teeth to management about what was going on....You have to be kidding me! Alot of the designers forementioned would stand up to Pacquette and Dickson alike to correct their bullshit.
I recall a meeting where they wanted to cut some of the better and fundamental mechanics in moh...now they take credit for them!
I personally recall having a discussion which turned into an arguement with Orzlack about the number of hours the MOH team was putting in.. I use to walk around this area to see it empty for months...He claimed he was working, but his door was always closed and no one was home. While we slaved away on MOHEA he was gone....that was a fight to remember. I hardly talked to the guy after that....
Unfortunately, in EA culture, telling the facts is a NO NO. You must always paint a pretty picture otherwise you are a Naysayer. Talking about the FACTS and the Pink Elephant in the room is a no no as well. IT will Kill your Career.
They'd rather spend hours with 20 designers in one room trying to figure out the simplest of systems. Or hire a group f story board artists to design out the mission tempo, HOW STOOPID.
Why does this happen? Because EALA has never really had a real Design Director with Creative power. Just a crows nest of Producers.
In the final analysis, EA needs to start to having a written test for designers to weed them out. Being a tester or a USC grad does not make you a designer. 3-4 years exp min to be accepted.
Cut your producers, Cut all your Dev Directors sans 1 per team.
I'm ticked because I own stock and after looking at how poorly it is now, I want heads to roll, I expect EA to have the most experienced people ever.
I hope they have a post mortem, man this sounds like a crazy soap opera.
Hello all by the way.
Superman was rough but I say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It made my liver stronger thats for sure.
Sound about right to everyone that worked there? I could go on and on but I dont work there anymore. I'm just validating the people who have the guts to post here.
1. Ship a terrible game.
2. Kill it.
Most of us would rather kill it and move on to a game that might actually be good.
BTW: The RTS group sells far more than a million per game and has a ton of talent without too many managers. In fact, the MOH team has some incredible talent, too. It's the painful stories we can't forget that cast a negative light on the whole studio. This one started years ago and is only ending now.
And finally, for us creatives... The money runs creative in most shops, most industries. If you can put together a team where creative has control AND fiscal discipline than you have found something rare and precious. With any luck EA will continue to push in that direction, but public companies have some pretty twisted rules. Welcome to the market.
I was actually worried that it was going to get cancelled as soon I got put on the project two years ago because of the slowness and difficulty of getting things approved and in game. Just getting the ball rolling in general was an enormous task. Coming from an indie studio where spending that kind of money and time was not anywhere close to being an option, it was very alarming. After a while I drank the kool-aid and rolled with it.
It's tough to shine in that kind of environment. The idea behind the game callapsed once we had the whole RTS/FPS hybrid thing taken away. It was on its way to becoming a mediocre at best shooter, in an already saturated and brutal market.
I think the MOH team has potential for greatness with this next title, because right off the bat, they already have an awesome and engaging story set up for fun encounters. There's not a bunch of designers and producers sitting in a room trying to pull gameplay out of their asses in some generic sci-fi universe.
Bah, whatever, I'm unemplployed and it's over, I'm gonna go surf.
And some projects just don't work out so you have to kill them. I don't remember anyone bashing Blizzard when SC Ghost was canned.
I know for some teams it may have sucked in the past or it may still be sucky, I'm just talking about my own experience (what else can I talk about?). I can compare it with two other big names that I previously worked at and safely say this is my smoothest gig.
I'm currently reading one of classics - "Rapid Development" by Steve McConnell. It's a book about "serious" software - databases, word processors, operating systems and the like - and it's already twelve years old, but it applies to games very well (and not just to the part that involves compilers and header files). Written with simple terms and friendly phrase, it offers many practical pieces of advice on how to organize a project better, from both the technical and the management side.
Essentially, while the author didn't intend for that, his book is six hundred pages of explaining why GameDev sucks big time. For instance, the author spends a lot of time explaining why schedules matter, how and when to create an accurate schedule, and why it is important to risk your job trying to defend it from upper management. But in my line of work, I have yet to see any schedule at all, let alone an accurate one. And that's just the tip of an iceberg, as the list of negligent behaviours goes on and on, and on, and on.
I'm under impression that most of epic failures in our industry were just six hundred pages away from success. Sure, it's much easier said than done, but maybe it's time to actually say it out loud for once.
(oh, and don't forget to read "Peopleware", too)
If I had one wish from a fucking green genie is that they all sucked cocked and went away, Prods and Dev Directors, from Dan Ellgrenn, Gilmore, Tarnie, Giollito, Chase, Rex, Cross, Wes, Raj the whole lot are a plague to good games. The last great dd at eala was brett close...the rest can suck cock. I'm serious.
If you look at how they actually became who they became in the industry you will see a string of people who are relative to someone or were doing cocaine with someon etc...or drunk off their asses. I'm not kidding, I am so tired of that here at EALA I hope someone at REdwood starts to drug testing a a policy!
Upper management and the real low levels are the real victims here. When all these middle managers lie and suck away at the real creatives and give out false forecast to upper management then they should be fired.
As a stock holder, you are trying to tell me that this game was in production for 5 years and no one knew it sucked? I mean how many fucking milestons were missed? Name names of people who were not shipping or hitting their milestones? Why weren't they fired? How come they are still in hte industry? Why are they working for a supposed AAA company? Why are their so many junior levels runing this company, what are their names so they don't get hired some where else!
Tell me right now why it's different and why its Medal of Honor?
Comeone MOH people make a game that will make me cry!
Buncha crybabies. Shit happens all the time in dev. You guys think you're special because you're airing EALA's dirty laundry?
You sound like a bunch of bitter, psycho ex-girlfriends/boyfriends. Gimme a fuckin' break. Suck it up and move on or leave the industry.
There are thousands of young kids fresh out of game degree factories like DigiPen, Full Sail, and (insert lame college name here) who are willing to kill you to take your places.
If you're part of a dysfunctional dev team, at the end of the day, no one's forcing you to stay there. Yes, financial reality may force you to covet your paycheck and endure a shitty project/development team, but at the end of the day, you're just there punching the clock. Is that really the reason why you're making games?
Think about it.
Stop whining, learn from mistakes, and make better games.
Don't get me started on Spark, they couldn't find their collective asses if they had a road map. If any of the Designers from Spark went to Tiberium then its failure was sealed for sure.
Actually, most of us would not touch that place with a ten foot pole. Maybe your ego is tremendously overinflated from having "Got in the industry the good old way", but not all of us actually seeking to get an applicable DEGREE towards this as a career are as dumb as you so evidently are.
Most of us view EA as the force that is draining every single ounce of life and inspiration from this industry with its cutthroat practices and disgusting IP destruction, and quite frankly would rather flip burgers to pay off our loans than ever have that name appear on our resumes.
In short, get real and get enough balls to use your own name when insulting the people who will be making up the industry in the years to come ;)
You got to be fucking kidding me, doing cocaine, being high or being drunk on company time. Try having a meeting with some of these fuckers and youll realize why they make the decisions they make...they are high on drugs.
Then do a cross section between those people who have recieved promotions mysteriously during the neil young era till now and youll see a group of people that were using drugs on and off of work.
Yes I;ve worked with these guys personally, and can personally tell you that seeing them get high on drugs during lunch time is not personal time when you have to come back to a meeting and make a million dollar decision. Some cock high on cocaine thinking he's making sense is no way to becoming the #1 company in the world...no wonder ATVI has surpassed!
The majority of these drug addicts stuck together in a cabal on and off of company time. In other words it was their dirty little secret and they;ll back each other up in meetings even if its to the destruction of the product and company.
Drug tests now!
And YOU'RE the one calling everyone else psychos? That's a pretty violent image there little man. If you're going to insult the state of mental health of others here, I might suggest you choose your words carefully and stop being an idiot.
I don't work in games, when I was a kid in university all I wanted was to work in games (specifically Origin, yet another great company raped and killed by EA). I still do game programming stuff on my own time, but I do work in a much better software development field. However, this story is disturbingly familiar to me. Not necessarily my company, but at a clients company (who shall, obviously, remain nameless). Management who know fuck all about their own business process have too much input on how things should be done in software. If you don't understand the business, you can't outline the logic. And when they try, it's a nightmare and leads to such a large mess that it can take a lifetime to clean it up.
Sadly this isn't limited to EA or game development. Fuck, it's not even limited to software development.
You have my sympathies.
Sometimes decisions are so absurd that even a random choice would be better.
In the end, who loss is the real hardworking people :(
I've worked in a corporate game environment and now working at an independent game studio. While the current environment is more relaxing, it's by no means less stressful. There's no shortage of people that don't know what they're talking about. When your Producer comes in asking for off-the-wall features and you're already chopping features off just to make deadline, all you can do is grin and bear it.
Anyways, being the low level grunt I am I cant help but think that any company who spends this much time and money on a project only to call it quits is full of retards. If you dont have a solid core team with a solid design idea to begin with, why bother?
And then coming here to wash some dirty laundry and throw around accusations in a circle is real professional. I can understand frustrations building up at the office, trust me I have worked in quite some interesting environments before coming to this industry, but seeing anything at this level is ridiculous.
You people who are throwing around accusations should be ashamed of yourselves, because each and every individual who puts such an amount of effort into these accusations also seems to be highly motivated at creating the best possible game they can. Where was that drive when you were working on the game? Or were you too busy talking about who did what wrong and searching for scapegoats?
Problem just seems people have gotten a little lost in this huge clusterfuck and lost focus altogether. Maybe management is bad on a mid level. Maybe on a higher level too. But if thats the case, its up to the grunts to stick together as a team and put in work. The grunts are the first and last line of defense. Without them nothing gets done. We might take out the execs garbage, but we have power too, the power to make a good game and put our heads together and defend good ideas as well as criticize bad ones.
But if the grunts are messing up and fighting over who gets to be AI designer, along with managers who dont do a proper job, then my friends you are doomed. No matter how talented you are as an individual and no matter how impressive your resume might look, if you dont have the right spirit and motivation, it will be very hard to put together the effort required to make a good game.
If games are your passion and your company is fucked up, ask yourself the simple question why is that so? Why do I want to make a good game? Why loose time over dishing out accusations,when you can ask yourself what can I do to improve the situation? If your answer is that you dont think you can change anything, you are wrong and should go home. And not come back. Focusing on who caused the problem instead of dealing with the situation at hand is a waste of time.
And if you have tried all you can as a real team and finally come to the conclusion that you are indeed powerless and cannot change it for the better, call it quits and go surf! And find a new company.
Oh and fire the frikkin junkies please!
Most companies I have worked for are run like high school. Where the BFF crew basically runs the place and promotes those that are "IN" whether they have a clue what they are doing or not. This eventually leads to good or smart people leaving and then the morons left basically make so many bad decisions that they run the company into the dirt (The Collective ring any bells?)
The joke is what is the difference between the boy scouts and the game industry.....at least the boy scouts have adult supervision. Until the game industry wakes up and puts competent and talented individuals in decision making positions and stops promoting people to their own level of incompetence, we are going to see this kind of drama. When someone who has NO experience other then being a soap opera actor is put in charge of a major project, and then an entire studio...come on, how can you take that company seriously?
You are trying to put blame on the grunts, the grunts at EA are usually good, sometimes very good. The problem is not incompetence at the low level, the problem is incompetence at higher levels (which are the levels that have the money and drive the decisions), that is why the grunts leave.
>>> Re: Superman
CCT bitches!
>>> Re: Drug use during game development
Let's not be hasty here... Have you been watching the Fox television show Fringe? Where would Doctor Bishop be if he wasn't self-medicating?
Also remember, you gotta pay da cost to be da boss.
>>> Re: Upper management responsibility vs. so-called "grunts"
I agree that studio management should never allow projects to derail this badly, but at least upper-management made the correct decision in this case and killed a turd. The old way at EA is to continually throw good money after bad.
How many games have you worked on that had no chance because of schedule, design, or technology limitations but you ended up pumping them out anyway? My guess is quite a few if you've worked there for a while.
Well, now there is a limit to this stupidity and as a shareholder I have to say; thank god and baby Jesus... It's about fricking time.
For every crying "grunt" here I'd like all of you to consider that you were all part of a team making a game. While sometimes it isn't possible to fix a feature or product yourself; you'd be shocked at what a small group of high-powered determined people can accomplish.
Even inside of EALA, say whatever you want about the results, but the team from inside managed to change the direction of MOHA and get it out the door.
Half of them are overpaid genuine alcoholics who try and tell me how to do my job despite the fact that just a week ago I noticed that one them was struggling to spell the word "Women" correctly, gave up and ended up spelling it "wemen".
I have an education, they don’t, so what do I do? I shut up, I smile, I do my job and I go home.
Get over it, you’re not the only one with games industry issues.
you have guys like the aforementioned orzulak and plummer and giolito and batter and williams and ellgren and gilmore beating down decent and talented developers into the ground every day with their completely uninformed and ridiculous ideas about ho to make games.
working at EALA as a daily exercise in pride-swallowing humiliation that will stick with me forever. it's actually not that different from high school.
What surprises me about this posting list is the utter lack of managerial know-how involved.
It reads like a noob whine list on America's Army, a bunch of twelve year olds accusing everyone else of aim-botting and sniper-hogging.
If any of you are in management positions, of any kind, it goes a long way to explaining why the game industry is in such a difficult place when trying to develop game production teams.
Management is not a mystery to be solved, and production is not a Half-Life puzzle mod.
Management and production have been completely and utterly understood for decades, (longer if you're Egyptian).
Unfortunately, public education in this country is in the same boat as game design, evidently.
For reading reference, outside the game industry:
Kaizen, Imai.
Millennium Management, Lareau.
The Toyota Way(Liker?)
You guys should be able to understand almost all of this content, (except some of Kaizen), and then when you weigh in on your criticisms we can read something other than, (insert your most polite version of whatever you like here).
Put another way,
Management is always at fault. Period. They are responsible for hiring, training, guiding and managing. If they mess those up, the company fails. (Oh, and managing money...)
However, management is NOT obligated to explain themselves to every little whiner they hire/fire or otherwise piss off.
Someone finally recognized reality about Tiberium, and pulled the plug. In a way it's an acknowledgment that management really screwed up. So badly it couldn't recover. Oh well, move on. Hopefully someone learned something besides what ya'll are whining about.
I've suddenly remembered too many examples to bother with....
-Terry
How? How did this game possibly go on for four years and not have raised red flags all over the place?
Nepotism, favoritism, hiring practices and inexperienced management are to blame for this situation.
The other main reason this game failed to make it out the door was posted way earlier in this thread: It was a poor idea from the start and no matter how good your team or management is, you simply can't make something bad from the beginning good.
It was the right move to cancel the game, it was just made 3 1/2 years too late.
Anyway; If you can't deal with the games industry, find another job.
That is total bullshit, you must be a manager yourself to talk like that. Management basically sucks in every industry and especially in any industry where the processes are still being defined (like sw develeopment)
Everybody understands that management is a necessary evil required to get things done, but don't give me this MBA bullshit that there's actually an art or science to it.
I'll acknowledge there are good managers but they're very rare and hardly worth mentioning in this sea of bullshit technicians.
I don't work in the games industry (i'm a HW designer) but I can tell you from my experience that *EVERY* single engineer (who didn't aspire to be an mba manager himself) in software and hardware development I have every interacted with has been the victim of retarded management decisions. I don't claim I could do better, especially since a lot of these issues are institutional but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expose and condemn bad management. In that sense this whining is constructive as we are exposing this incestuoust self-serving management culture which saps the vital energies of our industry, our economy and (for you stupid neo-liberals) stockholder value.
All these bullshit parasite managers from mid-level to C*O need to be continuously exposed as part of healing this dysfunctional corporate culture that is destroying north american industry.
Let me tell all you game devs that this kind of shitty management is everywhere in north american industry and is not limited to your industry.
It is eye opening and amazing to read these comments.
Part of me (the unrealistic optimist) feels that if more of the people on the other side of this equation (the consumers and fanboys) were aware of these issues, and the harsh conditions many of you experience, there would be a greater appreciation of who you all are and what you do - not just the big name designers that take all the glory. Maybe that appreciation would have formed a backlash, a letter campaign to EA condeming what their managerial actions have done... I would like to hope there would be more than insiders in this thread rooting for those with the bravery to speak up, even anonymously....
Just know there are people out there that care about these things, and while many of us are powerless to do anything, these are stories we will take with us....
Simply amazing and unfortunate. I hope everyone from that team that got an unfair shake find better, more lucrative employment.
how about we just change the industry and stop eating crap sandwiches instead?
I interviewed at EA, saw what condition Tiberium was in, and I'm not suprised it got cut. I have no idea what happened during the development, probably the same thing that happens to most bad games. Too many people involved in the making decisions, too many mid-level management types who needed to justify their jobs on a daily basis by mucking with stuff, and not enough trust put into the actual devs in the trenches.
I think the post about painting all the EA Studios with "Tiberium's shitty brush" might be true. I was really sad to see Westwood go, I disliked EA for a while. C&C Generals did not feel like C&C.
But I could tell C&C 3 was made with passion and it FELT like a genuine C&C (after they flipped the mouse buttons controls). I was very surprised, since it's a new team. They just had the passion, talent and budget to be faithful. C&C: RED ALERT 3 also looks very fun, they went all crazy with ideas and seems very original. Point is, in those games, you can tell the developers are passionate about the project.
Tiberium never felt this way.
That's possible: we are all actor and participate in this industry.
Because the people united will never be defeated!
It's for this reason, it's so cool to make a videogame.
It's always a collectivity project:
a real professional wants to give the better in his career job, knows if the timeline is correct and respect it.
And what do not create a firm to demonstrate at everybody that's possible to make a game with a real professional people in a real professional environment.
To show like an example to others firms: it's a collectivity who permit to create a great game.
Let the place to people who is not a blabla or egocentric person. (it's just a job, not to be a star);
Fired the bad, junkie or licking-ass incompetent people even thought they are in a key position:
they the first responsable of bad game;
And they are very good remunerated for that;
(In real, that's the real scandal!)
Because they kill the industry and the pleassure to make a game.
Because it's not healthy and not reasonable to work in this condition.
Where is the demo-maker spirit? Where are they?
Hello!!!
"If you think the entire industry is this fucked up, it's not, you just haven't worked at a good studio yet. "
That much is true, at my last studio I was so frustrated that I was ready to leavve the industry. I'm glad I didn't, because at my current studio I've found the passion and love of my craft that got me into games in the first place.
Oh, and everybody knows that EA has like a 4:1 manager/developer ratio. From reading some of the comments here about the place it sounds like shit floats over there. Thank you for convincing me, and everyone I can forward this article to, never to work there.
I've actually seen the giant wake up, once. I was working for a local company which develops low-budget first person shooters. Their projects typically span over six months. You've probably never heard of them, and I assure you it's for the better.
I was hired to work on one of their new projects. They had just bought a licence for an engine they had never used before. The plan was to create a first person shooter with twenty missions in it, in six months.
One month before the project started, a writer was contracted to create a story outline. He's an alcoholic (which is a well known fact, not a rumour), and he had never had anything to do with games before. He didn't deliver any outline until late February, so we spent first two months learning tools and generally being bored.
When the story outline came in, we just sat and cried. It wasn't even a summary of a traditional story. It was gibberish. One of us got angry at that point and created an outline of his own overnight. It was by no means high art, but it was quite a nice feat, because what little we knew about project requirements was as follows:
1. It was meant to be an actual story, rather than a collection of unrelated events.
2. It had to contain a mission that had the player descend from a mountain on skis (which implies the presence of mountains and snow).
3. It had to take place during Second World War on the eastern European front.
4. It had to contain at least one mission taking place during a historical event called Warsaw Uprising.
5. It had to be factually accurate in terms of geography and timeline, because here where I live this kind of knowledge is common and going against it would be a shot in a foot.
Now in case you just happen not to know, Easten Europe is as flat as a table and Warsaw Uprising started in August. So those requirements were somewhat self-contradictory.
Speaking of tables, the team had 15 people in total (remember the six months deadline?), and each member except for the project manager was sitting by a small table, with all tables located in the same room, each right next to another, with no cubicles or such. All you could fit on those tables was a keyboard, a mouse, a CRT monitor, and a sheet of paper. In order to isolate themselves from all the noise, my three nearest coworkers used their headphones all the time, and I could hear the music they listened to. All at once. Also, our concept artist had speakers, and nobody tried to force him not to use them, because everyone respected him a lot. Now imagine me sitting in a corner of the room, unwillingly listening to a mix of:
- 60s rock,
- 90s rock,
- heavy metal,
- all kinds of "strange" music, mostly Bjork and japanese pop.
I swear - if I ever have a say in such matters, everyone on my team is going to have a whole room just for themselves. And the walls will be sound-proof.
The project manager was sitting in a separate room, and visited us once or twice in a week, for about 15 minutes at a time. We had a few longer meetings, too, but they weren't very constructive. For instance, the most important plot device of that outline I mentioned was something we call "skrzynka". It's a very general term that means "box", "crate", "chest", and "case", but the context usually makes the exact meaning obvious. What the writer meant was a military supply crate, but the manager kept thinking it was a pirate chest. He wouldn't let us explain the difference, and I think he was doing it on purpose. He insisted on all kinds of crazy changes to the story, just so that the main plot device could be removed. One of my then-coworkers used to say the guy was excellent at solving all the problems he created all by himself. I disagree. He was just trying desperately to be at least remotely useful.
His idea for the prototype mission was as follows. It had to feature a wide open Belarussian plain in winter. All the events had to take place on the outskirts of a village, which had to look like the rural museum he had visited. He gave us pictures as reference. He openly stated that everything had to look like those pictures, including all the sizes and distances. Typical distances between huts in that village were between 10 and 20 metres. No hedges. No walls. No hills. And no foliage, because it was winter. We weren't allowed to use fog to bring the clipping plane closer. And the game was supposed to be able to run on GeForce 2.
The project manager was just a minor nuisance when compared to his boss, the CEO of the company. The CEO would visit us once in a month and change all the requirements almost completely. Harsh language was often involved. The good part was that those 20 missions soon became just 7. What was left of the story was a mess, but at least there was less work to be done. The bad part of the deal was that much of the work we did in a month had to be thrown away after CEO's subsequent visit. Nobody except for the manager and the CEO was allowed to make any design decisions, not even the small ones, and neither of those two could be bothered to make them for us. It took me four months before I managed to convince the manager to specify the set of player character's actions. I had to work on the prototype level without knowing whether the player could jump, lean, climb or mantle, because all these actions were being considered but never really decided upon.
After half a year, all we had was a very rough prototype of just one level. During those six months some of us did try to tell the manager things were going the wrong way, but he would never listen. At the end of sixth month we had a visit from another gamedev company located in the same town. One of our programmers had friends there. They were introduced to management as external experts, so the management trusted them entirely. Not surprisingly, they gave our prototype a very bad review.
Our manager got a promotion. There was a big meeting with all employees present. The CEO said he was very proud of the guy etc. We got a new manager and a generous deadline. We were supposed to be done in three months.
The new manager was a professional programmer and a very commited person. He tried very, very hard. I made a mistake in one of my previous comments: he did manage to create something that was as close to an actual schedule as possible, given the circumstances. It stated that if we made some cuts, and if we tried really hard, and if we were lucky, we could finish the project in three months.
Then I took a closer look. There were tasks missing. A lot of them. The kind people tend to forget about, like testing. So the goal of developing that game in three months was impossible. I told that to the manager. And he actually had the guts to tell that to the CEO.
There was an emergency meeting - us versus the CEO. He gave us a very bad motivational speech. If we had had any motivation at that point, we would have lost it. Then he told us:
"I know we can do it together. I want you to tell me we can do it."
There was a long silence afterwards. And then, one guy started talking. The shortest one, actually. He didn't stand up, because that only happens in movies. There was no background music, either. All he said was:
"No, we can't do it. It's just impossible."
The CEO didn't react at first. Then he turned to another employee:
"I know you can do it. What do you think?", he pointed at the employee. And the guy he pointed at said:
"No, he's right, we can't do it".
The CEO wouldn't give up. He turned once more: "What do YOU think?"
"Sorry, it's impossible. It can't be done."
The giant was awake.
In two week's time, the project was cancelled. Nobody was fired. We got new assignments. Most of the team was transferred to a new, much more humble project that had nothing to do with world wars. The second manager was assigned to it, too, and provided a lot of useful insight. He and our concept artist (the respected guy I mentioned before) led the project jointly. The two of them together were the best boss I've ever had. The new project turned out to be the most enjoyable six months in my career, in part because the CEO didn't have time to visit us as often as before.
The only slip occured when we integrated voiceovers. The CEO was very angry with us, because he forgot to tell us that he wanted all the announcements to be spoken by a woman (the only human character in the game was male).
Most of us don't work for that company anymore.
I cannot resist the temptation to mention two more details:
1. Despide all of the above, and depite the fact we're not working together now, we're still a team. We hold regular meetings. Should one of us win on a lottery, we could mount a full-fledged development team within a month.
2. The company I'm talking about used to have an internal slogan. It said:
"our goal is to become the Electronic Arts of the low-budget segment".
Not that I would know anything about the reality of working for Electronic Arts. Anonymous gossip tends to be unreliable.
From this long thread list we know that there is a legitimate issue beyond what is occuring at EALA. However, having worked at several studios, I can clearly tell you, the majority of the problems could have been avoided by
a) hiring educated people. When I started in 96, I'd say nearly every director or ep was not educated. Therefore they had absolutely no critical reference point to any idea or though process.
b) Hire only gamers who can pass a standardized test
c) At EA remove the creative power of producers. They are leeches, nearly every single one of them. They can't code, they can't make art, they can't design, they just dress well. Most of them are basically armchair designers. Instead, transform the Producer position to what it is in the movie industry, the schedule and money guy. IF producers were actually responsible for something other than mentally masturbating each other in a room for hours then they would be respected.
Its like you have the wrong people in the room making decision. At EALA we have countless of these producers who have no technical know how as well, how can you respect a person who is offering the stoopest of advice outside of anything technical? And I mean having shipped a game. If it were up to me a producer would only be qualified after 10 years of experience shipping games.
I hope we here at EALA do an audit and figure out what every producer and dev director does....do we need so many people in the way of creativity and production? Why are there people titled with the words Creative Director? Is everyone else Non Creative?
When did producers become the masters of creative? I always thought it was the game designer who was designing the game....right now a designer is nothing more than an implementor. I recall at one point a producer starting calling us that and we nearly threw him out the window. Implement this mofo.
I personally reported to 5 people when I was at EA! 5! In comical stroke they all came into my room 1 by 1 seperately to ask me what I was working on next, they all walked away with their notepads, lol...what the hell? What a way to bother my productivity.
My other gripe with producers is that they sit in a room and make decisions that break the game or cause everyone outside of the meeting to work more hours. In this case it should be the Dev Director that says no, absolutely not.
In the case of Tiberuim, making a fps rpg is not difficult, I mean Battlezone was a perfect example years ago of a FPS RPG RTS hybrid and it was fun as shit....The problem is no one was accountable after missing the first milestone. No one had the balls to figure out the core of the game...
How much did Tiberuim cost to date? Anyone know?
1/2 the cost of the war with Iraq
You mean we could have taken over a country or created a new one with cost of this production?
As a stock owner and as a public company, am I not entitled to know the cost of the production lost?
Am I not entitled as an owner of the company to get a list of names of people who worked on this failed enterprise and get a list of their resumes and salaries and responsibilities?
I'm an owner, where do I get this information before I sell my stock and invest into ATVI or THQ?
its the wave of the future!
40 million? I mean that's like a fat guy who realizes he has a weight problem at 300 pounds! I mean what happened at 230? 240? What was he thinking? I'll just job this off?
40 million, dam, do you know there are startups out there with something like 1 to 3 million? EA would have been better off starting 40 new companies that this mess!
I have a new plan, if anyone is listening out there from Redwood.
Hold all Producers financially LIABLE! Especially the Exec Producer. I mean have them sign contracts of financial liability. Or have them get out of the way. AT what fucking million dollar mark did they realize they had a problem?
Second, check resumes and hire only experience people, I'd rather hire 5 star game stars who demand red bull and facts than 2 star rooks who are yes men with no experience.
Its like how fucked up and disconnected do they have to be to realize that money is burning?
Like sending a rocket to the moon, but its caught fire and everyone is in denial.
This project started under the previous gm, from my understanding people were afraid to decisions, is this true?
why are you so angry
It's all good
The irony of the story is, the actual devs loved me, while the middle managers were afraid of my critiques and experience over them. in otherwords ego drove them from hiring an experienced person.
Then i heard about eala hiring for tiberium, I thought ok ill try that....but wow did i dodge a bullet! seems ea has gotten worse and not better!
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ERTS#symbol=ERTS;range=1y
To those saying suck it up and deal, I have a succinct response -- no. If you, for some unknown reason, enjoy being trodden upon, then at least have the dignity to do so quietly. The rest of us would like to have good working conditions, intelligent and functional management, and maybe a few people in charge who have realized that plenty of computer software gets written under similarly strict time lines without going wildly over-budget, and without any serious overtime. Perhaps we could learn from those other industries and adopt some of their processes.
And to those who think it is in poor taste to discuss these things -- I strongly disagree. It is in the best interests of both the industry and EA itself that they be discussed openly, and if a site devoted to game developers is not the proper forum for such things to be discussed, then I don't know what would be. Somewhere internally at EALA, communications have broken down, and the people capable of making the changes needed aren't hearing about the problems occurring. More to the point, if EA doesn't want their "dirty laundry aired", perhaps they should take steps to correct their internal policies and management structures so there is none.
Experienced developers know what they are doing, they sincerely want to succeed and will do nearly anything to finish the game on time and with top quality. They will give blood to make the game a hit.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking experienced developers are inherently irresponsible and childishly naïve about the reality of business and money. They understand the reality, they live it, they are probably better aware of it that the so called “management” you hire to run the place.
You need management, regardless of how experienced your team is, but the worst think you can do is hire the wrong people, and too much of them. Devs don’t get projects killed, management gets project killed.
You don’t manage people, you manage processes, companies, departments. You LEAD people, and that is what real managers do.
Unfortunately instead you have too many inexperienced middle managers, who collectively burn lots of salary and destroy your project. Yes, there is nothing worse than overmanagement, it is the single most lethal cause of death for game projects. An inexperienced manager covers up his inexperience by making lots of “decisions”, in order to justify his presence. He basically interferes in the dev process, books too many meetings, interrupts work flow and generally makes a nuisance of himself. His job has become to create the appearance that he is “getting things done”, and in fact he is achieving nothing and dragging everyone else’s work down. Experienced management knows when things are working and going well, so he just shuts up and doesn’t try to fix what aint broke.
The inexperienced manager is insecure, so he becomes secretive, doesn’t share his thoughts or doesn’t explain his plan or strategy. Instead he tries to create a veil of mystery around his deep and careful “plan” that really is a smokescreen to conceal his total ignorance. This person hires like minded yes men, and collectively they kill the project, while telling Upper Management everything is fine except for the “difficult” dev team who have to be made to “get with the program”.
This is how a project can burn $40 Large over 4 years and then just get killed off.
The military has been dealing with management quality issues for thousands of years, and they have come up with the best solution:
Keep your management teams small, 2 people max for each “unit” of manpower. One man is in charge, the second is deputy. This enables the decision “noise” to be clear and consistent to the team, it makes the middle manager responsible for what goes on, and it gives Upper management clear visibility on who isn’t cut out for the job. Accountability is the key, and you cant get that when you have a gaggle of coke snorting MBA glory hound pretty boys all looking out for their own asses instead of your bottom line.
My last position was doing QA. The team was made up of many different people, one which had an english degree. I was much more adept at finding gameplay issues but typically glazed over grammatical errors, entrusting that my coworker would pick them up. It was an equal trade, he would check with me on any questionable gameplay before writing it up.
Then our Lead comes up to us and says to me, here, you go through all of the dialogue on this level and look for grammatical errors. I looked at him and said, "Well, Fred over here has an english degree, he's much more suited for that". To which my Lead replied, "No, I think you should do it."
Now I'm all for working on strengthening your weaknesses, but as a manager, you should learn your employees traits and weaknesses and exploit your resources. It seems like a simple enough concept.
You're lucky to tell you're problem production.
And to have the possiblities to find a solution.
In the french industry is taboo or (if you're not friend of one of them) you're fired even though you want to be construtive: they're all afraid on them career and they know they said bullshit all the time.
They're a specialist to protect them place.
Your comment sound like a lot a french project.
Producer isn't only in charge of schedule and costs.(Now, I meet only one good producer...)
And yes, they all thinking "The experienced developers are inherently irresponsible and childishly naïve about the reality of business and money."
That's so true!
They don't remenber one thing: we are bachelors or master too. And we know what is developpement.
In my experience, I see a producer to change a deadline to know the team will make overtime. For her, it wasn't a problem and she laught to say: "well, they must to work hardly. If they can't, we give their a non ambitious project to the next time and if they continious, they're fired".
I was very schocked and very sad for this team because the deadline wasn't possible!
In other project, with the same producer, when she gone here to do an "audit", she change metodology process during the development with a "scrum" management.
It was a disaster: the block designer are never to be listen and the decision design was to be take by the block manager.
The worst of this, it's anybody knows what's the scrum (included block manager).
We lost a lot of time with the treath to be kill.
So, I really think you are lucky to have the possiblity talking about that: you're not in a dictatorial system even though a lot of people are anonymous. More, you have a site for that.
Fortunately like others french firms industry, the skill team is very good.
(I'm glad to participate in this project.)
And if the game is original, it will be not a high quality.
(I'm very frustrated to know we can to make better but it's wasn't possible for the same reason of you and I'm sad to fight to be listen.)
I wish this project don't finish with recuparate a pennant system...
So if I have a desire, it's to work with a skill team like the last project:
"Experienced developers know what they are doing, they sincerely want to succeed and will do nearly anything to finish the game on time and with top quality. They will give blood to make the game a hit."
And I desire to have a good management.
If I must to move outside french industry to found that with a good management, Well I arrive!
ALL UR MANAGEMENT BASE ARE BELONG TO US NAW!!!111!!!
Srsly....l2p
seriously.
That is the entire point... The producers and upper management do not listen!? If they don't care about what employs had to say, they sure the heck aren't going to listen to the community!
At one point in time there was a very small team working on Tiberium. Dan, Andre, Nathan, and a couple of engineers were working very hard on forming a compelling design for a fps/rts hybrid. After a lot of interesting processes and experimentation this small team of "smoke screen" (someone here has no clue about the people they are talking about) designers put together a gameplay prototype (in an ancient engine, which was absolutely not built for FPS), that blew away most of the studio.
This prototype was really fun and really well designed. Unfortunately, before you even get into the problems with middle management at EA, you have to get through the marketing shmucks and magical gurus who run the actual company. When these people "don't get" your game design, they ask you to dumb it down and just go ahead and rip off Halo because "hey, I know how to market THAT".
So R.I.P. Tiberium, it was once a great game. Show some respect.
Oh yeah and... USA 123!!!
If someone could collect all of these comments and compile a nice coffee table book, that would be much appreciated.
Rick G....seriously, you trusted this guy? He was a soap opera actor and this was his qualification to run things? Makes total sense to me. EA higher ups only respects suits to run the business since well, its a business right? Forget that two weeks before they hawking Toilet soap or whatever. Its just a SKU, a widget.
The days of running things out of Hawkins garage are long gone and EA has become the IBM of the game industry. Where processes and politic outweighs performance, competence, or results. Outmoded thinking in an industry that turns on a dime.
The reason the people here feel the need to air their dirty laundry is that they are passionate and want to succeed. They feel frustrated that time and again they were not listened to. What I usually do now after having been in these situations many times is to write out the whole message and then delete it. There is no gain from venting frustration in public.
At Westwood Studios the powers that were then were very proud of the fact that they hired really good people, and they did. The part of the equation they were missing was that they didn't listen to them. Deadlines and ship dates were the only thing that mattered. Did it run on ship day? Yes. Then ship it.
Here is the problem in one complete thought - If you as a project manager do not know the process by which you can make a fun game, how are you able to hire people who do? Chances are you will sometimes by accident. You could rely on that. Or you could check your ego at the door and utilize the good people you hired to help you.
Bottom line - if you have a manager that listens to you, stay at that job. The rest of the world is not like that. If not, write out your rant and send it to the Trash folder. For the rest, I can't wait to read about your experiences. I love a good train wreck.
Oh really? So protesting injustice doesn't help? The spouse of a certain EA employee shouldn't have bothered to write anything? The Martin Luther King Jr. guy really shouldn't have bothered giving any speeches, it didn't improve things for anyone?
If you don't vent in public, if you don't allow others to know and to rally against such things, you're asking to be trodden upon. You're inviting those in power to continue to abuse you and others. If this were really something which was unchangable, then yes, venting would gain nothing -- but it isn't. Your inaction allows it to continue, and failing to vent, failing to take a stand and speak out is what gains nothing.
It actually went great. We setup things like version control, change control, design documents, timelines, user acceptance testing, and actually talked to the business (instead of insulting them) to figure out what we could develop to help them out and improve the product.
Then the incompetent management buddy system hired a "business strategist" and put him in place as IT Manager. Now the original-dev who was at that time IT Manager wasn't very good, but as bad as he was, he at least TRIED. This business strategy guy was conned into the IT Manager position and almost quit when he found out they gave him his "Business Strategy" title, but put him in charge of IT and managing a bunch of developers.
So what did this guy do? Insist they hire an experienced and competent IT Manager, like they should have done in the first place? Nope. He just starts picking the people who don't rock the boat or question bad decisions, and promoting them. That girl that was just hired with no experience who was trying to launch code with full SQL queries on a public url's GET string? Yep, she got promoted to Developer, while experienced "junior devs" who had been with the company for 2 years doing a great job got passed over.
I saw the writing on the wall every time I questioned the new boss' bad decisions, but I couldn't leave the team we had so successfully put together. Even when I had almost every developer come to me separately to warn me that the "boss" was insulting me behind my back to the dev team, I tried to hang on. But once over half the team had quit because of his shenanigans and nastiness, AND I got a nasty review myself, I didn't see any point in staying. There was nothing left to stay for, just a sinking ship.
The sad part is, the company I moved to ended up being the same as when I first started that job. No processes, no timelines, no designs, etc. It makes me realize even more how great of a team we had put together. Only to have management step in and utterly destroy it. It's amazing that software development in general is still done THIS badly at most companies, both in and outside the game industry.
I'd like to point out that the local IDGA chapter meets the first wednesday of every month. It'd be great to see everyone there.
http://igda.org/la/
While smoke screening can provide a quick way to capture the sense of the product it costs alot of money and causes alot of hacking that has to be undone.
One of the major major problems at EALA was exactly the rebuilding of technology or engines every game iteration. This seemed to be more about engineer ego and the prods believing it hook line and sinker.
Second major problem was the Dev Directors never stopped the Prod or Sr. Prod. For example, I sat in a meeting where Tarnie wanted tanks to run over buildings, objects, trees etc...all on the ps2...not one Dev Director Kosenski to Charvat had the balls to tell him that this would ruin the production schedule. The Design Director Cross didn't have the balls or was hung over to tell him that was not part of the core of the game.
So what happens no one checks the Sr Prod and he goes on believing that his creative idea is on par with what we can produce.
This type of fear and lack of balls really hurt us. It also occured on Tiberium and James Bond. No one checked Chris Plummer...
A great story about Chris Plummer, after shipping James Bond we had a giant company meeting with over 300 people. He, Dan and other were in charge of creating a new IP. He went up and said "I've found out that its really difficult to create a new IP from stratch...."
Well several of us in the bank of cafeteria got up and left. I remember someone saying, you had 20 million on James Bond to learn....and that was the start of Tiberuim's end at the very beginning.
As a side note, I think JR is making a lot of great choices for our company and things are really making a turn for the better. I was at one of the studios that was closed when he took the reigns, and even though it hurt at the time, it was the right decision (for the main point of the original posters). Unfortunatly EALA and Tiberon are too large and diverse to just close down, so it's going to take time to clean it up, but I know it's on the radar. On the other hand, he did support trying to aquire TTWO when more house-cleaning was needed... oh well everyone makes mistakes.
As a side note, I think JR is making a lot of great choices for our company and things are really making a turn for the better. I was at one of the studios that was closed when he took the reigns, and even though it hurt at the time, it was the right decision (for the main point of the original posters). Unfortunatly EALA and Tiberon are too large and diverse to just close down, so it's going to take time to clean it up, but I know it's on the radar. On the other hand, he did support trying to aquire TTWO when more house-cleaning was needed... oh well everyone makes mistakes.
Verdu, if it isn't obvious to you, you've got a long road ahead of you. Going way back to Batter a "my team vs your team" was ingrained; hardly anyone wants to cooperate. The RTS team is great, and a tight knit group, but many people on that team sadly have the same problem. It is all about waiting for the other teams to fail. A number of us have tried to change that over the years, but we obviously couldn't deal with the bullshit politics. I would like to think I have moved on to a better place with all the lessons I've learned. Many of all the people who have stuck through the years of EALA are clearly bitter and angry to the point you have to ask yourself, can these people ever be party of a healthy and functioning team? If you want to know who they are, throw a corpse out in the reflecting pool and watch the vultures swoop in.
You can see a complete machination of the all the issues leading to the problems that EALA now has, from Spark leaving because of EA management, to having to hire newbies with experience, to some of those newbs becoming middle managers now on Tiberium (yes shipping 2 titles can still make you a newbie, what 2-3 years compared to 10-12, I'd say so).
Once Batter left because of the decision to ship Rising Sun early by upper management and his ep and sp to use storyboarders and Batter's want to use "Hollywood" types to run EALA to Neil Young and his personal issues, divorce, partying with cronies, an affair with this secretary...it all trickles down to the teams. AT that point, Neil promoted some ridiculous individuals to their positions because he partied with them.
Verdu only took over as a default. Sorry Verdu is a nice guy don't get me wrong and he acquired years and years of abuse by incompetent and ill placed middle managers, but none the less, he became the leader de facto by default. Which is sad.
And because of the "old ghost" decisions that took place and "old names" a rippling effect has been felt across the years to what EALA is now. From recockulous hires that are now "Producers" to directors. They are all their because of their relationships with past managers.
That is why its relevant. Each of those "old ghosts" touched a version of what Tiberuim once was, from Command n Conquier FPS to Vertical to Tiberuim. The 40mil wasted was based on years and years of in experienced EP, SP, P, ASS P and some who are still there controlling the production of more than one game.
Do a check on mobygames or linkedin.com to give you their previous experience and cross reference with what games they've worked on....its public knowledge...Why? LEgally when their names go on Credits of a game then its becomes public...check it out...you'll see someone appear out of nowhere as a producer, sometimes you can see "magical" jumps to their positions...how did they do it?
Tarnie left because Chris Plummer began to call himself and introduce himself as an Executive Producer. That shows that even the Sr. Producers were battling out for positions within a nebulous corporation. If that was years ago, about 3-4, then connect the dots to what was happening, from VP's to Producers and the so called drunk directors. That trickles down to the teams feeling of utter chaos.
So Anon 4 Oc 2008 at 4:09pm PST. I'd have to say humbly you are not seeing the big historical picture here. Tiberuims failures and the future rippling failure that will be the next MOH are all connected to a large series of decisions that screwed the company long ago.
I know for a fact that the majority of this mis hires and promotions were really based on a broken system in HR...that's right HR is to blame here.
No principles for hiring means a broken studio. B people hire C people, C people hire D people, D hires F.
And that's all she wrote!
Fixing EA is hard, at least until they give up on the idea of having a middle management heavy structure.
Stuff like this is good, if nothing else forces EA to reevaluate the way they work (like it happened with EA Spouse), there is a lot of fear at the "grunt" level when it comes to communicate failures, EA does not have a good way to have that feedback heard, the only alternative that exists for EA employees is to resort to public forums. Who's failing is that? EA's or the grunts'?
Keep everything in perspective, EA Spouse was about how EA required excesive overtime to ship products, EA has improved there. Tiberium venting is about how production processes are broken at EA, lets hope that this improves as well.
Grow up, all of you. Managing teams is hard, projects are risky, things get canceled. To call people out by name on this forum is immature, unproductive and probably slanderous.
Vent all you want on this "professional" site. Then go back to your hamster wheels and churn out another derivative franchise / copycat title. You certainly aren't learning much from your failures.
Most gamers I know have $70 at least twice a year for a new title. I would buy one every quarter. However, there ae no good FPS games to buy. Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, Frontlines: Fuel of War, Crysis. all flops in my opinion. All took to long to produce in my opinion. Crysis and Frontkines were not even finished IMHO.
If the main companies would just realize what earning potential is being lost to Poor direction/management. Plus an apparent Good Ol Boy practice of hiring. The US banking system could have used some of these guys.
My point is. We consumers have invested money and time into game franchises. We are acustomed to a certain feel, atmosphere and key layout(Why oh Why must every game have new standard key layout) The software costs $70, but there is the additional coct of a gaming PC, Monitor, headphones, internet, ect. So please give us more good product.
Mod comunities like Black Sands Studios turn out excellent work. Do it out of love, and do not have the buget of a major studio. Why is it they can fix a game like BF2, but the patches from EA for example seem only to break things?
There is obviously to little love of gaming at the major studios. I am so dissapointed. Maybe I should get outdoor hobby, and stop playing video games. MurderDogg
At the current studio I work at, all of the co-owners WORK ON THE GAME! I'm not saying things here are perfect, because they are far from it. But I do know that everyone here has a lot of passion and pride in what they do, including management.
I worked at EA, and I quit because of the management. Not all of my managers sucked. I really like a couple of them. They did everything in their power to get us what we needed and they listened to us. I didn't agree with all their decisions but they did the best that they could. The managers I really didn't like, liked to put out fires instead of prevent them. I guess its like working on really good tools. If nothing is broken nobody notices and realized what a stable product they have. But once stuff starts breaking everyone is bitching. It's much easier to look good when putting fires out and creating drama, than when everything goes as planned.
The issues are actually simple: layers and layers of middle management, several decision makers, and a large communication overhead. Add to that the fact that most managers are trained to deal with schedules but not with people and usually do not have direct experience on the field they are managing.
The software industry (and by extension the game industry) is in a bit of a unique bind in that the skills required to make the software are not very compatible with the skills required to manage a project. When a company grows much beyond 6 or more people (on average) it starts to become obvious that some form of management is require, but where does it come from? Do you promote someone into it, so you're going to get someone who knows the business but probably has no management skills? Or do you hire outside management, so you'll get someone who knows how to manage (if you're lucky) but doesn't know anything about software development? You're pretty much screwed either way.
Another quantity often overlooked, something they don't really teach in business school but that is ABSOLUTLY required in a successful manager of a software team, is that they have to be a people manager, a leader. A good software team manager does typically 60% project management and 40% people management. This is because a software team is a mixed bag of artists (yes programmers are artists, they paint with logic and have all the fallibilities of their more visually oriented cousins) and they require good leadership and focused goals or things can quickly get out of hand. It's like trying to manage a cage full of testy, hungry cats. You've got to know when to give the crinkly ball to the grumpy gray tom while not ticking off the calico (who also likes the crinkly ball) by distracting her with the feather while keeping the two long hairs busy on the scratching post. All while they're programming, modeling, rigging, etc. etc.
I tried to do it, briefly, I don't think anyone enjoyed the experience.
The game industry is especially problematic because it's seen as a “fun” job, not to be taken seriously. How hard could it be to make games? They find out the hard way, and the people under them suffer for it. What to people do when they find themselves in over their head? They get more help, so more middle management is hired, but they don't know what's broken or how to fix it either, because they don't understand software and/or can't manage people and the failing begins.
When was the last time you met someone who understood software development (had been in the trenches even) and could manage complex projects AND was a people person everyone loved? They are rare, rare people, I'm certainly not one, so if you find one work for them as long as you possible can.
I find it interesting that there isn't a "Director" roll in game development, we've taken a lot of the other titles from film studios but not that one. We seem to assume that the producer roll is the leader, but I think there should be a director as well. The producer is much more in the day to day management of tasks, the director would be responsible for making sure the game stays on focus and lives up to it's potential (as much as money and time allow, just like in film) by having final say over what gets put in and what gets cut, and takes the praise/blame for what works and what fails. You could say that this is a blend of the producers and designers responsibilities but it's more than that. Will Wright, Sid Meier, Doug Church, Ken Levine, Chris Roberts, we call them designers/producers but really they fill the rolls of directors of a game, ensuring everything fits together the best way possible and drives towards a certain vision they have.
The film industry long ago settled on the fact that a really good film could not be produced by a committee, it needs a driven and focused individual to push the film into being. I feel games need the same thing, the best games usually have one often well known name attached to them, even if it's not on the box we know who it is, and there is a reason for that. It seems actually rather unfair to expect that kind of leadership and dedication (and high degree of personal investment) from your average producer/manager, especially if they've just been assigned to the project as part of their job as they would be in any big company.
If you tell your exec producer, lead designer, CEO or who ever is charged with making all the decisions about the game that their name will appear large, on screen just before EVERY gaming session starts maybe they'd take their job a little more seriously.
Take American McGee's Alice for example. Who's fault is it that the game play didn't live up to the visuals? It's McGee's. I don't care what happened during development or who was actually in charge of game play, his name was on the box, it was his responsibility to make sure it lived up to his standards in all ways. So we must assume his standards of game play were rather low.
And if you can't find someone willing to take personal responsibility for a game, maybe it's not a good game to make. Or maybe Uwe Boll is available.
Speaking of personal responsibility, what's with all the Anonymous posters? I can understand clicking that checkbox if your about to bash your boss/company/spouse publicly but checking it just to be sarcastic seems a little immature. I reference you to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory.
As for:
"If you tell your exec producer, lead designer, CEO or who ever is charged with making all the decisions about the game that their name will appear large, on screen just before EVERY gaming session starts maybe they'd take their job a little more seriously."
I'm afraid the effect depends on such person's responsibility. I've seen projects where the person in charge, if given the option you describe, would just scream something along the lines of "yeah, baby, bring it on!". These projects were no less of a mess than what Tiberium apparently was.
Some people just don't make a connection between being in charge and being responsible for something. Employees exist to be exploited. Investors exist to be milked. Games exist so that one can spend their life having fun at work. For people like these, having their names displayed in large letters means they're just going to be famous.
I do believe in the concept of Game Director, but I also feel that for the sake of the classical triangle of schedule, cost and features, it's best if each corner of that triangle is held by a different person. I would give features to the Director, cost to the Producer, and schedule to a committe of Leads. In other words, there needs to be a mechanism for providing Director with sanity checks.
Sadly that is true. It's not a magic bullet that will make bad managers or egomaniac control freaks go away overnight. However if their name is plastered on a well known dev nightmare bomb at least everyone will know what to expect next time, and people will think twice about working with them.
As Blizzard said to Uwe Boll about selling the film rights to World of Warcraft, "not to you…especially not to you."
On the other hand if the egomaniac control freak cranks out good game after good game people might just have to put up with them anyway, just like some directors we could mention.
And oh yes I fully agree with your triangle of responsibility, I certainly wouldn't give cost or scheduling to the Director. That would be giving the kid the keys to the candy store.
Anyway, in a nutshell, I think you're making a good point, but I'm not sure if such a safeguard can be used effectively, because:
1. Publishers seem to be interested in teams, rather than individuals. It's great to have a good team on your side, but many teams have deeply rooted problems that inhibit their creativity and productivity. These problems tend to be hidden, e.g. even if someone is an immature control freak, it doesn't show when they're pitching an early concept.
2. Gamers don't seem to care about problems a director can hardly control. For instance, your game may perform poorly because of a strategic mistake, such as using the wrong engine and not being able to switch to something different later, or its reception can be damaged by poor marketing or publisher strategy. As a result, you may have your reputation ruined even when it's not your fault. This kind of risk is hard to accept for a veteran with a good reputation. Those who can take such risks are people with no reputation at all, but no sane person is going to take them seriously.
3. Those uncontrollable problems tend to work as the universal excuse. Many things that need to be done in a software project, aren't being done in GameDev because "games are art and you cannot control the creative process". This isn't even a smoke screen, because most people genuinely believe it's true.
That's true, for now, though not I think as true as it once was. They certainly understand the marketability of names like Sid Meier and Will Wright and I believe they're starting to understand the power of people like Ken Levine and Doug Church who can get things like Bioshock made and help turn around the quagmired Tomb Raider license.
“This kind of risk is hard to accept for a veteran with a good reputation.“
If Spore tanked would Will Wright never make another game? Would no one finance his next project? Both are unlikely. But the film industry has things go wrong beyond the directors control as well. Production companies pull budgets, sets burn down, actors phone it in, the writers go off the deep end, and even films that review well bomb at the box office. Every big director has some bombs in their closets, the directors who wont take the risk again get out of the industry, and almost no one knows who they are now. But most directors still make films, why? Because they love doing it. Why do developers stay in the game industry after experiencing something like Tiberium? Same reason.
“Many things that need to be done in a software project, aren't being done in GameDev because "games are art and you cannot control the creative process". This isn't even a smoke screen, because most people genuinely believe it's true. ”
As the industry continues to mature, and the people in control start insisting on hiring true professionals in the craft, this will improve. The GameDev industry needs to shed some of the “fun & carefree” mantle because it isn't always fun, and it's never really carefree. And you can still have Nerf gun fights and deathmatch evenings in a “serious” software company, I know, I've instigated both.
Not specifically for anything. But for everything.
Exec Prods take the credit when things go right...
Let us ponder this. Is it that you suspect your post isn't really up to snuff so you don't want it attached to your persona? Is it that you don't want people to know you read Gamasutra on company time? Perhaps you don't want your friends to realize you're the type of person who trolls dead threads days after they've gone stale so you can poke it with a stick from behind a rock. Whichever it is, it's an interesting phenomenon. Sorry if my questioning your need for a mask without any real cause makes you uncomfortable.
Hmmm, must comment on project management, make an unverifiable claim on a past job or insult an EA employee for conventions sake... oh I know!
Anonymous 15 Oct 2008 at 10:30 am PST is a lame *EA* dickwad.
There, propriety has been satisfied.
Many people obviosly who are posting as Anons don't want to lose their jobs, but have the need to vent. Great, let them...
Why put them down...oh I forgot your the corporate hero....that's why you come off as a dickwad. Keep kissing ass or goto EA, after all they the market in sports..no sega.
I have no problem with people posting anonymous to protect their jobs, it's the rest of you that bother me. So trying to be a hero and help fix this broken industry makes me a kiss-ass and a dickwad? Then so be it.
And I feel this conversation IS on topic, the topic now being "why is game development still so painful sometimes?"
Pretty much everything you need to know about why this is true when the rest of the software industry has smoothed out can be found right here in this comment list. It's not necessarily in the thoughts presented, though there are some good ones, but in the attitude and composition of it's posters.
I lay awake last night thinking about why the large number of anonymous posters here bothers me. Then I realized, these are the people making our games? Sure there are smart reasonable people here stating their causes but even many of those are refusing to take personal responsibility for their thoughts, hiding behind the banner of anonymity when there's no obvious reason to do so. A large number posters, however, are simply acting like immature school children, wearing masks while hurling lame insults at one-and-all across the playground.
I realize this is a skewed sample, that in an anonymous setting the kruft will rise to the top, and I've enjoyed dusting off the flame war muscles I haven't used in almost a decade, but still these are people who are expected to act professional over intense year plus long development cycles? People who are afraid to take responsibility for saying "you suck?" You want to work in the close proximity of an in-the-trenches build cycle with Mr. "we want blood!" Yes it was said in jest, but it's indicative of a prevailing attitude in game development.
I was championing the idea of one person to take personal responsibility for the quality of a game, the Director, and I still stand by it but apparently lots of people aren't taking responsibility. It is a "fun" job after all, and responsibility isn't fun. This goes double for management, responsibility is their job! The failure of them to accept it, or take is seriously, is a big part of the pain felt in the above postings.
You think I'm sucking up to corporate management? You think those managers (and their managers) listed above were mature individuals who took responsibility for their actions? Obviously they weren't or we wouldn't be having this conversation.
You want game development to stop being painful? Grow up.
Sitting safely on the other side of the Pond I would dare to ask about 2 things troubling my mind:
- what top management at EA did to prevent the decline of the studio? I mean what did some big, venomous vipers from EA HQ craving for higher stock options? The condition of the studio hurt EA business for years and it's impossible they haven't realised it. EALA was losing money and HQ will never ever stand losing money. Why no one intervened earlier? Most of the writers complain about mid-level management at EA in general. Bunch of inexperienced managers might be a plague but they are relatively easy to "fix". They were not "fixed" - why?
I know there are few obvious answers but I'm here and you are there seeing it on your own eyes so I guess you know better.
- how EA can harvest billions of USD every year with approach like this? Is there a clear line of hiring idiots to production and geniuses to marketing? Was EALA profitable until this year due to other releases? How long it usually takes to milk and throw away a good studio?
This thread is a distaster for the brand new EA image so carefully introduced for several months. Maybe more disastrous than decline of famous studio.
Last but not least, I wish you all to burn all the anger and find less toxic working place.
"The military has been dealing with management quality issues for thousands of years, and they have come up with the best solution:
Keep your management teams small, 2 people max for each “unit” of manpower. One man is in charge, the second is deputy. This enables the decision “noise” to be clear and consistent to the team, it makes the middle manager responsible for what goes on, and it gives Upper management clear visibility on who isn’t cut out for the job. Accountability is the key, and you cant get that when you have a gaggle of coke snorting MBA glory hound pretty boys all looking out for their own asses instead of your bottom line."