Getting in the Game, the first time

About 5 years ago I was working for a hospitality marketing company running a small room of CSRs who's job was to call members and renew hotel club memberships. These memberships gave people discounts off rack rates for about 200 hotels worldwide. It was an easy sell, practically calling people up and saying,

"Hey, Mr. Brown, you know your membership that you've been using when you travel for business? Yes, that one. It's up for renewal...what's your CC number?"

It was a pretty good gig, one of many customer service jobs I had during the time I finished school at UBC in 1996 to that point. I ran a direct sales company from '96-'98 setting up a couple of small offices in Seattle and Anchorage (yes, door-to-door in Alaska...another post for another time), did some time in electronic sales, and spent most of my time in the new millenium working in call centers.

Then one day, my girlfriend at the time got me a PS2 for my birthday and a couple of games, Tiger Woods and NHL 2001 with Owen Nolan on the cover, both from EA SPORTS. She actually got it for me because I didn't have a DVD player at the time and thought it would be a good idea as well as a lot of fun for the both of us to have.

Yup...she's a keeper alright.

I really got into these games. It was the first time I enjoyed gaming again since I had a PS1 in '99 which I ended up giving to a buddy I owed a bunch of money to. Hardly played it at all. Prior to that, I was an NHL player back in the early 90's while I was living at UBC in the dorms. Played it on the SEGA. Instead of studying, many nights went into our leagues that we created for bragging rights which got fairly heated at times. I played football in university, but man, some of these battles in front of the screens brought the competitiveness out of me as much as lining up on the field at Thunderbird stadium.

The first time I ever encountered video games was when my father got me an Atari 2600 in 1982, the one with 6 switches and I recall putting in Combat the game it game with and saying to my bro,

"Man, does it get any better than this!"

So 5 years ago, I had this thought about what I'd do if I ever worked for EA. I recall playing Madden in '91 on the SEGA with my buddies and constanty throwing the Bomb play to one of three receivers running post patterns. I had that play down pat...would fake the short throw by highlighting the receiver and then go long to the deep man.

TD every time.

It was just a thought. It was no more than a week after that though that I saw an ad in the paper and EA was looking for testers.

You mean, there was a job for people to play video games??? Oh man.

I got the job and ended up changing careers and got into one of the most exciting industries I've ever been involved in. The first game I tested was Def Jam II: Fight for New York, probably one of the most underrated games to ever come out of the studio in Burnaby.

It was a dream come true. From playing Madden back in the 90's to now being with the company leading the charge. I was in.

And it was the start of something much bigger to come.