So here you are, 3,000 anxiety above Nazi-occupied France, in a Douglas C47 Dakota with other members of the U.S. Army's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. Rifle in hand. Fear in your gut. It'southward June half-dozen, 1944. D day. You're moments away from leaping into the predawn heaven and encountering who knows what on the ground. Over the engine's drone, the captain barks an order to get ready and y'all —

Wait, terminate the war. "There's merely not enough happening," says Rick Giolito. Betwixt the opening shot and the helm's line, he counted 15 seconds. That'southward too long. "Make information technology five." Okay, restart the war.

Yous're preparing to jump, when enemy burn suddenly strikes the plane.

Concord on, this scene could be better. "Could I get fume in the motel?" Giolito asks. A producer, Brady Bong, makes a note.

You lot land on a farm in the French countryside, not quite sure where to go. Armed with an M1 Garand, a Colt .45, and grenades, you set out to find your squad and avoid getting captured. It'southward dark and quiet.

Too quiet. "I gotta hear Germans yelling exterior," says Giolito. "You lot know what would be good? If y'all heard Germans banging on the door of the barn, trying to get in." Bong adds this to his list.

Later on taking out some Nazis, you recover a machine gun and get i-on-i with a tank, triggering a mighty explosion.

"Cool," says Giolito. "You get to blow upwards a tank."

In a darkened office in the Los Angeles studio of Electronic Arts, down the street from the J. Paul Getty Museum, Giolito and his team are fine-tuning their ain work of art, the latest version of Medal of Laurels, or MoH in EA shorthand, a World War 2 video game inspired by movies like Saving Private Ryan. The final version of MoH, in which you were a 24-year-former lieutenant named James Patterson, arriving on Omaha Embankment past boat, sold more than than 1.iii meg copies.

Giolito is MoH's executive producer, so technically speaking, he creates games. Only he and his crew are aiming college. Their goal is to create an authentic historical experience. Like Spielberg. But different and perhaps, as some gamers would dare to say, better. Instead of simply watching D solar day unfold in eye-stopping particular, you are a part of it. You impale Nazis, you save soldiers, you survive the invasion.

Actually, if y'all want to live to fight another day, yous amend first practicing. War is hell.

Welcome to the entertainment industry of the 21st century, where video games are serious business organisation. Last twelvemonth, U.S. figurer- and video-game revenue surpassed domestic box-role receipts, and this year, the game manufacture is expected to widen that gap with more $10 billion in sales. In this competitive and enervating field, Electronic Arts is a bona fide hit maker. The visitor, based in Silicon Valley, has created more than than 50 best-sellers (more than 1 million copies each) over the by iv years. Fiscal year 2002 was its best ever, with 16 best-sellers (more than any other game maker) and $1.seven billion in sales (30% college than the previous twelvemonth). Its share price has more than tripled since January 1998, giving EA a market valuation in excess of $10 billion. (Disney shares, past contrast, take lost more than than 50% over that same period.)

Much of EA'south lineup bears a hitting resemblance to a multiplex marquee, with games pegged to the latest Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and James Bail movies. Acknowledged sports "franchises" such equally FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, and NBA Live offering new versions each respective season. And The Sims, which is at present the best-selling PC game of all time, has branched out to the Web with its first online edition.

Simply EA is more than simply a successful company in a glamorous industry. It is a model of successful direction for companies in any industry. Lots of organizations struggle to turn ideas into blockbuster products. EA pulls information technology off by honing the way that it develops and markets games: by thinking of its products as emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys. Past allowing its 12 studios the freedom to innovate while instilling the bailiwick to come across deadlines. And by not taking its success for granted. "Every time we transport a game, we're as nervous as someone who'due south on Broadway for the first time," says EA president and COO John Riccitiello. "Every time we do it."

The anxiety is understandable. A acme championship takes anywhere from 12 to 36 months to produce and costs EA betwixt $5 meg and $10 million. That'south twice equally much every bit the company spent just six years agone. Indeed, back in the offset, all yous needed to make a game was a decent imagination, a solid understanding of algorithms, and a dry basement to phone call your studio. Now a visitor like EA has to pull out all the stops: move-capture sessions with star athletes. Photo and audio field trips to Europe. Original soundtracks by hot artists. And in the case of the game that'south based on Lord of the Rings: The 2 Towers, voice-overs performed by the movie's cast.

Given all of the creative parallels, information technology seems like shooting fish in a barrel to mistake EA for a Hollywood studio. Merely that's an unfair comparing: Making games may be more complicated. The market place is ruthless and fickle, shaped by fleeting tastes and the march of engineering. Unlike a movie whose release tin be delayed until the time is right, a game's technology tin chop-chop go stale. "In Hollywood, if you succeed 1 out of three times, you're doing okay," says Bing Gordon, EA's master creative officer. "In this industry, that'due south not enough."

IT'S IN THE GAME
Fall is crunch time at EA. The visitor generates 80% of its acquirement during the holiday season. With transport dates looming, many of EA'due south products are in the final stages of production, and veteran game makers like Bruce McMillan are playing them 8 to 12 hours a day. McMillan is a luminary in the industry, having helped develop Madden NFL, MoH, and Harry Potter. The title that he'southward mayhap best known for, FIFA Soccer, is the best-selling sports game in the earth. Since its release in 1996, information technology has generated more than $one billion in sales.

An executive vice president and group studio general managing director, McMillan spends his mornings calling EA's studios and his afternoons playing the latest "build" of the games. From his Vancouver, British Columbia office, he calls EA's London studio, then follows the sun, calling product teams in Orlando, Florida; Austin; and finally Los Angeles and San Francisco. At this stage, he'southward "tuning the games." He plays, gives notes on what needs fixing, and plays some more. "What I've realized over the years is that unless a game has great game play, it doesn't matter how pretty it is," he says. "We tin't hibernate behind the graphics." By "game play," he means fun interaction. Yesterday, he noticed that some of the bad guys in Bond shot with the same skill at each level of the game. "I want them to feel more than menacing as you go to the higher levels," he says.

McMillan, 39, is lean, with blond pilus and a playful air near him. He's an avid soccer thespian, and his office overlooks EA's soccer field. While tuning FIFA Soccer 2003 yesterday, he noticed that the defence wasn't playing smart. It reacted the same whether you brought the ball upwards the sideline or to the middle of the field. But in a existent match, he says, "it's always easier to laissez passer the ball sideways or backwards. That's a basic mechanism of football." Less than 24 hours later, the FIFA team made the adjustment by tweaking the artificial intelligence. "Some of them were here until iv in the morning," he says.

Before in the week, McMillan himself was awake until four in the morning reviewing games. His wife woke upwards and walked into the den to find her married man talking to the Television set screen again. McMillan was playing FIFA at the game's highest level, where the artificial intelligence is at its best. "It studies your tactics and looks for play patterns," he says. "The move yous used to score the showtime time won't work the next time you endeavor it." After taking a 1-0 pb, he was stymied in the second one-half, unable to penetrate, and he tried in vain to fend off the figurer's attacks on his goal.

The adjacent forenoon, his 9-year-old son Alexander was getting ready for school when he noticed the score on the TV screen: 2-1. He looked at his bleary-eyed father and said, "You lot lost once again, did you lot?"

McMillan grew up playing video games in Vancouver. More specifically, he grew up at the arcade on Hastings Street, which isn't far from the EA studio where he now works, and he would pump every quarter that he had into the machines. He lets his three kids play considerably less. The dominion is three hours a calendar week, unless he has a game that he wants Alex to effort. He'due south one of the company's unofficial testers. Like his begetter, Alex gives notes too.

Dad, school was great today. I got 35/35 on my spelling test. . . . I played the game today that you left at the firm. Really fun but the command feels slow, and I don't understand all the buttons. . . . The get-go mission is like shooting fish in a barrel. Took me v minutes or and so. I'd arrive harder. . . .The dart gun was cool. . . . Why can't I get back and replay levels to be improve? . . . I hope Harry Potter is doing well. It's going to exist fun to play it with you on Friday.
Love, Alexander

The boy has a knack for uncovering bugs that the creators haven't come across. In an earlier version of FIFA, Alex discovered that he could score past lobbing the ball from midfield all the way into the net — something an experienced thespian wouldn't attempt, because information technology would never happen in real life. "That drove our producers crazy," McMillan says with a touch of pride.

A PASSION FOR THE GAME
It'southward hard to overstate how passionate EA game designers are about the products that they brand. Near anybody you meet mentions that he grew upward playing games: Pong, Pac-Man, even the obscure text-only games that left everything up to the imagination. "My favorite course of entertainment is games," says Danny Bilson, vice president of intellectual-property development, who has however written or directed over 150 hours of tv and cowrote the moving picture The Rocketeer. "The reason why I work for this visitor is because I dearest games."

Traditionally, games are a guy thing — more specifically, according to industry demographics, a sixteen-to-24-year-sometime-guy thing. Equally the market keeps expanding, though, the enthusiasts at EA accept to figure out how to brand products for people who are non like them. The casual gamer. The novice. EA is going after this audience with new content and game play. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the biggest launch in company history, selling more than than nine million copies in fiscal year 2002. Information technology was especially popular amid children nether 14, a younger audience than EA has traditionally drawn. It's easy to understand why. "They may never take played games before, merely they go to a lot of movies," says Jeff Brown, vice president of corporate communications. "Their first fourth dimension out, they get for the familiar."

According to EA, The Sims appeals to teenagers, parents, grandparents — many of them coincidental gamers. More than half of its audition is women, unheard of in video games. As one staffer laments, "My aunt blames me for losing her job because she played The Sims so much at work." Part of the charm is that The Sims isn't a foreign or threatening fantasy world. On the contrary, it'due south contemporary ordinary life. The false people, or "sims," take out the trash, go to piece of work, make pizza, make friends, engagement, and fight — the stuff of real life.

In attracting new customers, though, EA has to exist careful not to lose its core customers, who don't desire to run across their beloved games dumbed down for newbies. So EA has begun focusing on the start v minutes of game play. That'due south how long a customer at Best Buy or Wal-Mart may spend trying out a game. The challenge is to create an feel that leaves these two distinctly different consumers with different impressions of the same game. It must be easy enough for ane, yet hard enough for the other. "Some people don't similar to lose, so y'all've got to give them a positive experience the showtime time they play," says Bing Gordon, EA's main creative officeholder. "But at the same time, give a hard-core gamer the promise of challenging stuff to come."

Raise YOUR GAME
Snoop Dogg has a fantasy that only EA can fulfill: He wants to play basketball similar Kobe Bryant. Just heed to him rap in "Get Live."
Ya see my game is to back ya down and bang on ya.
I'm gonna bring it to your whole team,
Tryin' to win the whole affair,
Size me upwardly for the band.
I'm celebratin' while the other team's mad, their heads downwardly hating,
waiting to get another rematch, but we own't seein' that, believe that.
Next.

EA'southward sports franchises come out every twelvemonth. And every year, the claiming is the same: Make them better than and unlike from terminal year'southward games. "We're trying to alter the perception that it's just a roster update," says Steve Chiang, the general manager of EA Tiburon and the former executive producer of Madden NFL. "We think of five major hooks and five minor hooks that nosotros mention on the box. Simply there are hundreds of other changes." One major hook in Madden NFL 2003 is being able to play online. Friends on opposite coasts can square off in a game between the New England Patriots and the San Francisco 49ers. Another hook is having Monday Night Football announcers John Madden and Al Michaels provide commentary in real time.

Hard-core gamers wait video games to reflect the latest advances. If EA doesn't offer a substantial upgrade, another visitor might, making its game this year'due south hot basketball or football title. Consumers also want cool new features. Enter Snoop Dogg: rapper, basketball fan, and Los Angeles Laker. Instead of just offering a dandy soundtrack — NBA Live features hip-hop while Madden NFL has stone music — the NBA Alive 2003 team had a brainstorm: original music. EA asked several rappers if they would be interested in writing songs specifically for the soundtrack. It was a slam dunk. Some of the musicians visited EA's country-of-the-art recording studio in Vancouver and did their affair. "We asked ourselves, 'What'south the next step in delivering a total entertainment experience?' " says Jeff Karp, vice president of marketing. "We feel that music adds some other emotional element to the game." Not to mention a smashing marketing bending. The songs are available only on the game disc, but EA is providing radio stations with copies in hopes of generating buzz.

The recording sessions led to another new — and unexpected — feature. "Snoop said, 'I want to exist in the game,' " says Karp. Then EA added him along with fellow rappers Fabolous, Busta Rhymes, and Hot Karl, who hoop it up with Tim Duncan and Jason Kidd. The musicians were given NBA skills co-ordinate to whichever player they wanted to model themselves after.

In terms of applied science, EA hopes to unveil a radical improvement in each iteration. In NBA Live 2003, that innovation is the new "freestyle control stick." It allows y'all to utilize both joysticks on the controller, rather than merely one. Now, in addition to moving a player forward, backward, or sideways with the left joystick, yous can perform more than sophisticated moves with the right stick, or right analog.

This is about more than simply adding a new button, says software engineer David Bollo. This is about increasing the level of control, which is a very big bargain to gamers. Bollo is more than than happy to demonstrate. He'south sitting at his desk-bound in the NBA Alive part, not far from a row of NBA jerseys hanging from the ceiling. Although he can't palm a real basketball, when he picks up the game controller, he plays like Jason Kidd. "And so I can palm the ball behind me or I can sweep information technology betwixt my legs," Bollo says, moving various players similar a puppeteer. "If I want to get fancier, I can cradle information technology to the correct, then cross over and spin my way through traffic. I'one thousand a large fan of the spin move."

Some improvements come straight from gamers, and not but those at EA. Afterwards focus groups in Europe said that FIFA wasn't authentic enough, EA assigned 60 people to set up the game. 1 of the biggest changes involved the brawl, and how it remained glued to a role player's foot when he dribbled. "We had to exercise an accented rewrite," says Rory Armes, a senior studio vice president. The reason? The more realistic a game appears, the higher customer expectations become.

The moves themselves come up from actual athletes. The Madden NFL studio, for instance, has tapes of every NFL game going back about v years. Chiang and his team study the tapes for acrobatic catches and tackles equally well as for memorable celebrations, like the time San Diego Chargers wide receiver Tim Dwight tilted the ball back and pretended to drinkable information technology. "What'southward real to our consumers is what's on Tv," Chiang says.

Actually, EA is going for authenticity rather than realism. It'south an important distinction. The games look and feel real, only not too real. For instance, there is no trash talking in NBA Alive, the coaches don't get fired in Madden NFL, and there's no ominous blackness smoke or fatalities in NASCAR Thunder. (Although in that location are plenty of fatalities in MoH, at that place'southward no claret.) When the cars crash, there'southward only white smoke, the sign of a less astringent blow. At kickoff, NASCAR insisted that the cars, plastered with corporate-sponsor logos, couldn't be damaged fifty-fifty after collisions. Eventually, though, Chiang'due south team convinced NASCAR that aptitude hoods and crushed bumpers were a part of racing.

FUN AND GAMES AND SERIOUS Business organization
Information technology takes a tough company to brand entertaining games. "The forgotten aspect of creativity is discipline," says John Riccitiello, president and COO. Information technology's something that EA never forgets. Coming up with a clever idea for a game is the easy part. The hard part, the function that EA focuses on relentlessly, says Riccitiello, is identifying the right thought, assembling the all-time evolution team, solving the inevitable technical problems, creating a game that people want to play, getting all of the work washed on schedule, getting it to marketplace at the right time, and knowing how to generate buzz about it in an increasingly crowded market place. True, many stages of that process are inherently creative, but what ties them together is discipline.

In that location is the discipline of trying to sympathise ideas in the making. "This is where a lot of not bad ideas get lost," says McMillan. "Maybe you don't understand what somebody is describing, and information technology could be the next Sims." Early in the process, game makers try to identify the creative center of a game, or what they have come to call the "creative x." At its core, NBA Street, which features rim-ramming 3-on-three action, is about becoming a street-ball legend. Def Jam Vendetta, a new title, is hip-hop meets professional wrestling. "When we were building The Sims, we knew what we wanted in the game," Riccitiello says. "We knew what to put in and leave out. Ditto James Bond 007, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings."

In that location is the subject area of understanding the audience through focus groups. The discipline of sharing all-time practices and technologies across the studios through an intranet library. "At that place'south a saying around hither," says Brown in communications. "If somebody develops a meliorate bract of grass in one game, that grass will exist in somebody else'southward game the next solar day." In that location's besides the field of study of grooming the next generation of executive producers. EA's "emerging leaders" programme gives participants immediate experience in departments outside their ain. There is the discipline of studying (well, playing) the competition. "Nosotros often know more most the feature set of our competition'southward products than our competition does," boasts Riccitiello.

There is the discipline of methodical project management. "If you lot're working on a game and you lot miss your deadlines, you won't be working here very long," says Riccitiello. "This isn't some sort of summer camp — it'south boot military camp. If you're not a hunter-carnivore, if you're not willing to work as hard as yous can to win in the market, it's non a skilful identify for you."

And yet, the staff is encouraged to take creative challenges. Neil Immature was the executive producer on Imperial, an online conspiracy thriller that bankrupt the rules of traditional figurer games. Information technology was episodic, similar The X-Files. Information technology took interactive play to a new level, offering clues via email, fax, and telephone. But EA discontinued the game because of disappointing sales. Despite being a high-profile flop, it was considered groundbreaking, if flawed, internally. Young was not fired. He became executive producer of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, one of this year's well-nigh important titles.

ON TO THE Adjacent GAME
The Academy Accolade in Rick Giolito'due south office sits perched on a high shelf above his desk-bound in EA'southward Los Angeles studio. "Oh, you lot noticed my Oscar?" he says. It's a joke. The award actually belongs to Marker Lasoff, who won a 1997 Oscar for his visual-effects piece of work on Titanic and has joined EA as fine art director on MoH. That, in a nutshell, sums up the cinematic nature of video games today. If you lot want to create a state of war game that feels as compelling as a pic, you raid Hollywood.

MoH was originally created by DreamWorks Interactive, the much-touted multimedia experiment started by Steven Spielberg, along with Bill Gates, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. After the company failed to live up to its pedigree, EA bought DreamWorks Interactive and promptly transformed MoH into a best-seller. Similar other EA acquisitions, the studio retains a adept bit of its original identity. In fact, there was a Spielberg here just the other mean solar day, says Giolito. The manager's son dropped by to play video games with a friend.

The MoH production team decided that it was creating more than a game. Information technology was a "deep, interactive cinematic feel," says Giolito. Rather than spell out the player'south objectives, the game starts in Normandy, and you lot figure out your mission by encountering soldiers who instruct you through scripted animation. Last year, when EA debuted a trailer of the game at E3, the industry's big trade bear witness, people waited in line for three hours to run into it.

The development squad is obsessed with authenticity. Information technology hired retired U.South. Marine Corps captain Dale Dye to serve every bit a consultant on the game. Dye, who earned iii Regal Hearts fighting in Vietnam, consulted on Saving Individual Ryan, Born on the Fourth of July, and Platoon. He teaches the game makers combat tactics and how to handle diverse weapons. He leads the camouflage-clad squad in maneuvers in a mini – kick military camp on a pigment-ball range. "The people making the game get an understanding of what it means to flank and what it means to work as a team out in the field," says Giolito.

For the D day scenes, half-dozen designers and sound engineers traveled to Normandy to take pictures of the beaches and the towns, and to record the sounds of the French countryside. The multilayered soundtrack, featuring music as well equally sound furnishings, gives the game its rich, cinematic feel, and hopefully, says sound designer Erik Kraber, information technology sparks emotions too. "Ultimately, MoH is a first-person shooter, then yous're firing your weapon, only in between that, we endeavor to create attachment to graphic symbol and personality," says Kraber. "So if you lose someone in boxing, it'due south not taken lightly. That'southward the Holy Grail in our game."

It's the sort of game that prompted EA to hire Barry Jackson. Although he doesn't play video games, he has worked on a dozen films as an illustrator, including Shrek and Dr. Seuss'southward How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Jackson has helped refine the MoH preproduction process, which Giolito is sharing with other EA studios. Showtime, a grouping armed with Postal service-it Notes gathers in a pocket-sized conference room that'south decorated with cover-up netting. Everyone tosses out dramatic moments to include in the game, such equally an ambush, a reunion, or a dream sequence. So they start rearranging the Postal service-its to build the narrative arc of the story. It's a common script-writing technique, says Jackson, known as "step-outlining."

Jackson and his squad of illustrators make digital sketches of each moment (they telephone call them "story beats") and cord them together in an "animatic" (something that resembles a flip volume of black-and-white action scenes that can be screened like a short movie). Kraber adds the music and audio furnishings. The result is a design outline of ane level of the game, the equivalent of a unmarried chapter in the story. Jackson also charts the visual progression of action, tone, shape, and intensity to make sure that each element builds to a climactic point, like the Dow on an excellent twenty-four hours. "You get a improve story this way," he says.

In only 4 weeks' time, the MoH team and EA executives have a articulate thought of a game's tone, mood, and objective. "I was looking for a better way to communicate to senior management what nosotros're doing," says Giolito. "Now they can come across how the game unfolds moment by moment. It's similar a play or a flick."

Actually, in the instance of MoH, information technology's more like a miniseries. Next twelvemonth's installment involves dramatic rescues, unexpected reunions, surprise attacks, and any number of plot twists. World State of war Two lasted six years, merely EA is hoping that MoH will last a lot longer. Giolito, for one, isn't worried about running out of ideas. He picks upwardly a letter of commendation about a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Award. Afterwards the soldier's unit of measurement was attacked, he was shot at and almost killed by a grenade, yet he withal managed to go later on a machine gunner and later clear an airfield so that the wounded could be airlifted off the battlefield.

Giolito shakes his caput, amazed. It doesn't affair that this soldier fought in Vietnam. Heroism is heroism. "Real life spins more than intricate, interesting stories than everyone could ever brand upwards," Giolito says. "I'll exist expressionless and buried before we explore every possible story in this game."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Visitor senior author based in Baltimore. He has nevertheless to win a game in Madden NFL 2003. Learn more about Electronic Arts on the Spider web (www.ea.com).

Sidebar: THE DISCIPLINE OF CREATIVITY

At Electronic Arts, creativity is congenital on a foundation of management discipline. EA even takes a disciplined approach to the challenge of developing artistic leaders. A dozen or and then producers and designers at each studio meet throughout the twelvemonth for a series of workshops. A dancer came in to talk about how motility can be used to limited physical and emotional states. A film adept talked about the utilize of music in silent films to enhance the activity. The idea behind the programme is simple nonetheless constructive, says Andy Billings, vice president of human resource and organizational development: Expose creative leaders to other art forms and new ideas, and run across what rubs off.

This past September, the guest speaker was Henry Jenkins, a director of the comparative media-studies program at MIT and a passionate gamer. Imagine the movement-moving picture industry in its infancy, when it had been around for only 25 years, he told the group. "That'south where you are at present," said Jenkins. "Video games will be the most important American fine art form for the 21st century."

The challenge for EA's game creators is figuring out how to build an manufacture and how to create lasting art. In a previous workshop, Jenkins talked about narrative structure, grapheme evolution, and memorable moments in Homer, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Poe. "What can you put in a game that will endure?" he asked.

Over ii days at the Vancouver studio, EA's creative leaders pondered these and other issues. The nature of fandom. The propensity of rule breaking and how designers might encourage this to enhance a game. And the importance of leaving space in a game for imagination, or the "meta game." Meaning that the game continues in the player'due south mind even when the panel is switched off.

That'south how the creativity sessions are supposed to piece of work as well. "We're taking a group of people who more or less grew up with 'fight or flight' video games and proverb, We can't just have great graphics," says Rusty Rueff, senior VP of human resources at EA. "There has to exist deep, nuanced storytelling."

Between presentations, producers and designers played video games. As they deconstructed competitors, there was gleeful criticism, along with something else: 18-carat admiration when they saw something unexpected. They couldn't help information technology. Deep down, they're gamers.