When I first started working at EA close to about five and a half years ago I remember one day I when I was working as a QA tester on Def Jam Fight for New York and I saw a forum post about the possibility of future iterations. Now I knew at the time it was important that I didn't divulge any top secret information and even then I didn't know that we would end up making Def Jam Icon a couple of years after that. I jumped on the post and mentioned that if people really enjoyed DJFFNY, why wouldn't a third one be made? That was it. A few words. A day later, that post was deleted.
I didn't know why it was that way and I only speculated it was because back then we weren't allowed to be on the forums and, in fact, were discouraged from participating and discussing company information with the public. In my past year now as a Community Manager, I'm proud to say that things have definitely changed.
I'm not sure where and when it started in the company, but for me I noticed the change working with
@stephensonmc who was the CM before me while I was working in product marketing on NHL08. A pure community guy who ran his own Madden site, he pushed the envelope bringing in gamers from all over who had strong opinions and feedback on our games, and he set up community days where influential gamers would meet with producers who were totally open to their feedback. He did that for NHL08 and I was amazed at the interaction and what the devs were able to gain from their feedback and participation. Since that time other CM's and I at EA have carried that torch with many of our titles and have changed the way we interact with our fans.
With the growth of numerous social media channels, now more than ever it has become very important to involve the community voice along with giving our game developers a platform to communicate directly with fans (and detractors) of their games. From developer blogs to podcasts to videos, our goals have been to open the doors that have been held locked for so long and allow our users to be a part of the development process. Sometimes getting producers to get out into the open can bring about small fears for some folks especially leaving themselves in the line of fire to an ever-fickle sports gaming fan. But I honestly feel that the more we provide an opportunity for our fans to be a part of the process, the better our games will become. At the end of the day, everyone wants to see the best game come out of the process.
The way things are being done are definitely changing and I've seen a lot of that this past year. Mind you, as open and as transparent as we try to be, we can't give away all the inside stuff and with more voices on the inside speaking out we still gotta be mindful of the complete organization and working together with all our teams within all our games. I say this in response to a
little leak I put out earlier this week about overhearing some execs at work talking about announcing a new game next month. I had no idea that one tweet would get picked up so quickly and when I saw my name on
German sites, I was like, oh man. To say it had a few people at work scrambling would be an understatement. And no, I can't confirm or deny the many guesses that people have said; I'm already being watched close enough for another slip! ;) I'm glad however that they didn't ask me to take it down and that all that was requested is that I keep things on the dl until the announcement in January.
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to that and until then I enjoy reading what the community has to say about what they would love to see. I think our fans will be buzzin' a lot over the next year and I'm gonna do my best to keep pushing the envelope as your guy on the inside. I'm planning to update this personal blog a little more often with my thoughts and perspective, so I welcome your comments and questions and will do my best to let u know what I know.
Keep gamin'!
~sk88z
When I first started working at EA close to about five and a half years ago I remember one day I when I was working as a QA tester on Def Jam Fight for New York and I saw a forum post about the possibility of future iterations. Now I knew at the time it was important that I didn't divulge any top secret information and even then I didn't know that we would end up making Def Jam Icon a couple of years after that. I jumped on the post and mentioned that if people really enjoyed DJFFNY, why wouldn't a third one be made? That was it. A few words. A day later, that post was deleted.
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