EA producers says that developers must convince publishers
“Don’t take no for an answer,” says Reid Schneider, senior producer at EA Montreal. He says it’s up to developers to make sure their voices are heard and not ignored. He says that it’s their responsibility to change their publisher’s point of view.
Schneider’s comments came in a speech at the Montreal Games Summit. The speech involved the challenges of creating EA’s forthcoming co-op shooter, Army of Two.
Here were Schneider’s words:
It’s your job, whatever position you have on the team, to change the way your publisher thinks, show them, don’t tell them, what they’re going to get. Don’t hand them a stack of paper, because they’re not going to read it… And probably most importantly, don’t take no for an answer. If you really believe in your idea, if you really think your idea’s good enough, then someone else will as well.
Schneider went on to discuss if development teams needed creative directors. According to Schneider, EA Montreal takes pride on not having these people. He says that creative directors are measured on the amount of ideas that they generate that actually go into the game. So, according to him, there’s an inherent contradiction when it comes to that job.
The full article awaits after the jump!
“Don’t take no for an answer,” says Reid Schneider, senior producer at EA Montreal. He says it’s up to developers to make sure their voices are heard and not ignored. He says that it’s their responsibility to change their publisher’s point of view.
Schneider’s comments came in a speech at the Montreal Games Summit. The speech involved the challenges of creating EA’s forthcoming co-op shooter, Army of Two.
Here were Schneider’s words:
It’s your job, whatever position you have on the team, to change the way your publisher thinks, show them, don’t tell them, what they’re going to get. Don’t hand them a stack of paper, because they’re not going to read it… And probably most importantly, don’t take no for an answer. If you really believe in your idea, if you really think your idea’s good enough, then someone else will as well.
Schneider went on to discuss if development teams needed creative directors. According to Schneider, EA Montreal takes pride on not having these people. He says that creative directors are measured on the amount of ideas that they generate that actually go into the game. So, according to him, there’s an inherent contradiction when it comes to that job.
In his words:
These people below have tons of great ideas, they have great ideas every day… The problem is that sometimes when these ideas get pushed up to the creative director, they get X’d out. And that’s exactly what you don’t want to see – because if that’s happening, the best ideas aren’t going into your new IP…
At EA Montreal, the way we work is we have a core team of management that basically comes together, and we look at a problem, we look at a game design, whatever it is, and that group gets together and makes that decision…
I’m not going to say that the position of creative director isn’t going to work in some places; it will. For some places, it’s great.
Ah, good to see that he doesn’t dismiss the value of the role completely despite his companies belief in not having them. Schneider goes on to say that studios should encourage crazy people, he says that the company should get those people to believe and then they should get a whole team to form around those ideas.
This last quote below definitely qualifies as a goal that every creative studio or game development company should aspire to achieve:
Take the best ideas from wherever they come from – animators, engineers, designers, whatever it is. Encourage those people; make them take ownership in the project. And that’s how you’re going to get them to really enjoy what they’re working on.
Not exactly good news, but inspiring nonetheless.
Via GamesIndustry
