Hello to My EAC Moderators

Just some snippets from a pretty damn long email I had sent out to my moderators introducing myself to them. It's my first intro to any team since I've been back...I feel they are the most important of all the people that I work with next to my coworkers at EA and community leaders running websites of their own. These are the brave souls who deal with a lot of the headaches that occur with some of the harder-core gamers that are truly passionate about our games. I have much respect for these folks and they'll know over the next year how much I appreciate their hard work. I'll probably repurpose this for the EA folks and community leaders ;)
_____________________________________________________________________

Guys,

A little background on me: I was born in Vancouver, BC 10 days after my parents landed from the Philippines. I joke saying that they didn’t really love me and I was basically the meal ticket for them and my two older brothers to stay in Canada. I know they love me…but sometimes I wonder. I’m 34 and have been playing video games on a recreational (sometimes intensely-recreational) basis since my first Atari 2600. I’ve also gamed on the Commodore 64, Coleco-Vision, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS, PS2, and now X360 game systems.

I graduated from Centennial high school in Coquitlam, BC where I played football, basketball, hockey, track, and rugby. I went on to UBC on a football scholarship and graduated in 1996 with a Bachelors of Commerce degree in Marketing. For 2 years I ran my own direct sales company (read: door-to-door) and followed that with sales management positions with in the retail, telemarketing, cellular, and hospitality management industries. In the winter of 2003 my girlfriend at the time bought me a PS2 and a couple of EA SPORTS games TW golf and NHL. Yes, I married her. It reminded me of my days playing Madden in high school with my football buddies, and staying up late and not studying for exams in the mid 90’s playing EA’s NHL in university; Joseph, I’m sure you can appreciate that.

A few months later I saw an ad in the newspaper from EA looking for game testers and I thought, what the hell, I always thought that if I ever had the chance to work there, it would probably be the coolest thing in the world. I was hired onto the Def Jam: Fight For New York (probably one of the most underrated games ever to come out of EAC) game testing team in April 2004 and since then I’ve worked on numerous franchises including Need for Speed, FIFA Street, Cricket, NBA LIVE, NCAA Basketball, MVP, NHL, Madden, and NCAA Football in a testing, development support, or marketing capacity.

Earlier this year I went through a brief transition where I left the company to pursue other interests. Other interests did not last long. I worked 2 months at a mobile cellular phone company managing communities in Eastern Europe from an office in downtown Vancouver. There were some language barriers. When I also realized I was no longer in the video game industry I really started to miss it. I was offered a position with Blue Castle Games in Vancouver, a mere few blocks down the road from EA.

I worked with a lot of people I knew that used to work for the mother-ship (it’s what I like to call EAC) and I helped support their recent baseball manager title that’s coming out for 2K.

When I was back at EAC working in a marketing capacity for NHL, I met Marcus and was amazed at his energy and drive in his role as Community Manager. I recall him proposing the NHL Community Days to me and I was stoked about it. I couldn’t believe that there was a role in the company that did the things that Marcus got to do. I supported his initiatives 100% and know that he’s carved a path at EAC, in particular with NHL and NBA/NCAA, that the development and production teams have really bought into.

His drive has helped him move into a role that I know he will be just as successful in. When I found out about the role, I was immediately enthused and confident to take on the task of filling his monstrous shoes. No, we are not alike him and I. I would not consider myself a hardcore gamer…I seem to get my ass kicked online more than I care to talk about. Though I am a great sport and my competitive nature is right up there with crazylegs. Just don’t ask him about my Deion Sanders like pick on the EA field last year…he’s still bitter about it.

There are very big plans in the near future and I want to involve you in all of them from new forums to new website designs, and more ways than ever for the EA Community to be involved. The goal is to grow our community by welcoming new members no matter what type of gamer they are whether they are hardcore gamers or recreational gamers or “I only play when my wife (or husband for that matter) let’s me” type gamers. It’s a vision that I see where we can grow our communities with all types of gamers and freely communicate with one thing in common and that is our passion for gaming; while at the same time solidifying our base of hardcore gamers as the game experts that they are to help others get better…because at one time or another we were all new at a game, right?

This all starts with you and I want to again thank you for all your efforts. I know as volunteers on boards, you take a lot of the heat and sometimes, if not many times, you feel nothing but unappreciated. I want to let you know that I will do my very best to make you feel otherwise. Who knows exactly what the future holds, but I do know that with or without you our forums will grow and more and more gamers will want to let their voices be heard whether it be on our boards writing or talking through their game with screenshots and videos. I hope you all will continue to welcome them here and help us grow and be a part of the EA SPORTS family.

As a team of moderators I hope we can all learn and work together to make our forums the best experience in sports video games. We are now at the phase where we need to plant the seeds and grow it. Millions of people around the world play EA SPORTS games, so we want to hear from them and help them even more to get into our games.

Cheers mods,

Alain Quinto
EA SPORTS Community Manager