EA directors on game development: IP-creation’s like Jackass

Nothing like getting the facts straight from the horse’s mouth. Or in this case, the jackass’ mouth. Reid Schneider and Vanderlei Caballero, senior producer and design director for Army of Two, spoke at the Montreal International Game Summit about creating new IP.

“New IP is inherently like Jackass,” said Schneider, referring to the MTV series that featured people who were fearlessly crazy and borderline dumb. “Sometimes, you need to fail a lot in order to succeed. YouÂ’re going to fail a lot during these prototypes.” As an advice (or warning) Schneider recommended developers must learn to embrace failure.

Meanwhile, Caballero, not wanting to look like the clueless one shared his insight on game development, “You have to innovate, you cannot do the same thing over and over again. To innovate, you have to show it.” Okay, fine. Talk is not that expensive. Just what kind of innovation does Army of Two has no other games have? “If you have the need to drink, you also have another needs…our game is going to have the first [co-op] partner to pee,” said Caballero. That is innovative.

Finally, Schneider told aspiring developers to “Change the way your publisher works. Make them believe. Show them, donÂ’t tell them. Most importantly, donÂ’t ever take no for an answer. If you really think your idea is good enough someone else will, too.”

For the record, peeing video game characters qualifies as a good idea.

Via Next Generation

Nothing like getting the facts straight from the horse’s mouth. Or in this case, the jackass’ mouth. Reid Schneider and Vanderlei Caballero, senior producer and design director for Army of Two, spoke at the Montreal International Game Summit about creating new IP.

“New IP is inherently like Jackass,” said Schneider, referring to the MTV series that featured people who were fearlessly crazy and borderline dumb. “Sometimes, you need to fail a lot in order to succeed. YouÂ’re going to fail a lot during these prototypes.” As an advice (or warning) Schneider recommended developers must learn to embrace failure.

Meanwhile, Caballero, not wanting to look like the clueless one shared his insight on game development, “You have to innovate, you cannot do the same thing over and over again. To innovate, you have to show it.” Okay, fine. Talk is not that expensive. Just what kind of innovation does Army of Two has no other games have? “If you have the need to drink, you also have another needs…our game is going to have the first [co-op] partner to pee,” said Caballero. That is innovative.

Finally, Schneider told aspiring developers to “Change the way your publisher works. Make them believe. Show them, donÂ’t tell them. Most importantly, donÂ’t ever take no for an answer. If you really think your idea is good enough someone else will, too.”

For the record, peeing video game characters qualifies as a good idea.

Via Next Generation