Get the Inside Scoop on What's Happening at EA

Awww, look who has a 1oth birthday today! Don't you just want to pinch its cheeks? Okay, maybe that's just me. Anyhoo, yes, it was ten years ago today--February 4, 2000,  that The Sims was released upon an unsuspecting world, and, well, we all know what happened after that.  I'm not sure anyone could have predicted its success--let alone the fact that it would spawn an entire division at EA---but there it is. (continue reading…)

Signs The Apocalypse  Is (No Longer) Upon Us

I'd like to take this opportunity to throw out a giant 'congratulations' to the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.

No, not for reaching Super Bowl XLIV-that was the easy part-but for putting a serious choke hold on what has been an incredibly insane 2010.

Seriously. The sports world thanks you. I thank you. (continue reading…)

My love affair with The Sims came long before anyone paid me to love it.  Even before I became an editor at Computer Gaming World magazine  (R.I.P),  I was already a longtime fan of SimAnything, having played the original SimCity, released in 1989, until my eyes bled, nightly.  That's why I wear glasses now!  (Actually, to be honest, I can admit here  that my favorite Sim game of all time is still SimTower, which probably puts me in some kind of freaky minority, but what else is new. ) (continue reading…)

Here's one easy way to get those precious web clicks: Put the word "free" in the title!  Not that I'm scamming you. I'm not. Would I do that to you? Come on!  We're, like, totally friends!  Anyway, yeah, so TODAY ONLY, February 3, Dark Horse Comics is giving away issue #1 (of 4) of  Mass Effect:  Redemption for the iPhone. If you are like me and are a sucker for any Mass Effect geekery, well, you can't go wrong here, especially when we're talkin' free.  So go get it! (continue reading…)

So by now I assume most of you have probably heard the news that EA is having its first ever Super Bowl commercial this Sunday, for Dante's Inferno, which comes out in stores the following Tuesday, February 9.  Now, in full disclosure, I've neither seen the commercial yet nor played the game. Nor have I even played the PS3 demo.   So I am no more an authority on this topic than your garden-variety forum troll.  Nevertheless, like any garden-variety forum troll, that is not going to stop me from weighing in on the issue. (continue reading…)

Imagine designing a game character from scratch. Sure, you're given some design parameters like "make sure it's cute," or "appeal to kids," but even so, the look of the character is in your control. You're the one with the blank sheet of 11 x 17 paper on your desk and what you draw will be molded, and animated, and will end up on screens all over the world.

If you're interested in working in the game industry and love to draw, I'm sure you've dreamed of being a Concept Artist like my interviewee this week Emmy Toyonaga (see self-portrait on left). She's responsible for creating the look of the MySims characters. Before that, she was responsible for changing the colors of couches on The Sims from brown to black. Have to start somewhere I suppose. (continue reading…)

Hi there.  If you've already read today's new Mailbag, then I guess I've said hi to you already. Oh well. I'll just be that annoying guy who says hi every time I see you, even if it's just five minutes later. Hi!

So today's big EA news is the announcement that the Command and Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight open beta has begun on the PC. Yay! (continue reading…)

Wow, can ya believe it? It's like another new month already! How'd that happen? Anyway, maybe it's just me, but, man, was that a pretty sucky January: Hellish weather, earthquakes, and, worst of all, ABC's cancellation of Ugly Betty. So, the heck with January. January can bite me on my flabby rear. Actually, one good thing did happen, at least in the gaming universe, or at least the part of that universe that pays me, and that was the release of BioWare's Mass Effect 2, which I'm now 25+ hours into and still hooked. No, it's not perfect, and we'll get to that in this Mailbag a little, but it still represents yet another peak for a studio that has just made one great game after another for over a decade now. Plus, the head guys are doctors! If they weren't such smart and nice people, it'd be positively annoying.

Not surprisingly, the grand majority of Mailbag questions this week centered around Mass Effect 2. And that's groovy with me, but I did manage to get a few unrelated letters in, too, for you haters and non-believers, so stick around anyway! Plenty of room here for everyone! Remember, if you too would like to be one of Jeff's Official Mailbag Morons (that's a compliment!), send your questions to podcast@ea.com, and put "Mailbag" in the header. This week's Mailbag is for you, Betty! :(

(continue reading…)

This is what you'd call a "slow news day" here at EA. Well, other than the Bad Company 2 demo and beta stuff. But when all I have to talk about on Twitter is the crummy chicken curry at the cafe, you know there's not much going on.

So I figure it's a good a time as any to update you what's up with the EA Podcast, as well as a couple other things.

The Podcast

So, once again, the planned podcast with BioWare's Ray Muzyka sadly fell through, but we've rescheduled to talk to Mass Effect 2's project, Casey Hudson, early next week. So any questions you sent to me at podcast@ea.com I will apply to Casey. And feel free to ask me new ones. I'm contemplating having this one be a tad spoilery (not endgame stuff, though), since a lot of folks will have already played it by then, but if you'd prefer I don't go there, let me know.

About the podcast in general: If you're wondering why they've been posted so erratically of late, and have been annoyed by it, believe me, we're right there with you. The issue is this: Until we can buy our own dedicated podcast equipment, Samantha and I are tied into using EA's Media Lab-and its sound engineers--for recording, which is the same studio where the sound for many EA games is recorded. Meaning: Both the lab and/or the engineer often get booked when we need to record. We get very small windows in which it's possible to record, and if anything goes wrong, schedule-wise, it can put the podcast off by a week. It's a crappy situation, but relief will soon be at hand, as we've whined enough that we may finally be getting our own equipment, which will allow us to podcast whenever we want. Keep your fingers crossed. Eventually, our weekly podcast really will be weekly. Meanwhile, before we do the Mass Effect 2 podcast, we're going to have a couple folks from The Sims group on to talk about The Sims 10th anniversary (yow!). That one will be posted on February 4, the day of The Sims original launch, so look for it!

EA.com Weekly Editorial Schedule

And speaking of weekly schedules, I've been developing a programming schedule for editorial content that will be unveiled any moment now, in which features at EA.com will be given regular, weekly slots. Jeff's Mailbag, f'rinstance, will be on Fridays, starting tomorrow. I'd tell you that the EA Podcast will be on Tuesdays, because that is indeed the plan, but since everything involving the podcast right now is so flaky, I don't want to jinx it. So we'll gloss right past that. The ultimate goal is that every day you'll be getting something new from us here. We're starting small-it's a scrappy operation here-but the plan is to grow and grow until we're so big that, like, we'll get our own building and private jet and butler, and maybe even our own cook who knows how to put curry into chicken curry.

Interface tweaks/redesigns

We have plans. It won't happen right away, but it will. Many of the things you are requesting-like the ability to see your own name/handle in blog comments, rather than "Anonymous," are on our to-do list. I'm going to get my own page on here, too, which will have not just my blog entries, but links to the podcasts, videos, and other goodies as well. Content-wise, there is much more in store: More columns, more features, more giveaways. What we want is not for the editorial to feel like some kind of hidden side project to EA.com, but an inherent part of the site's DNA. That takes time, though. And money. But we're on it. As long as we have the mandate-and so far we do-we are committed to following through on this Grand Experiment in giving EA.com an editorial identity. And, hey, if that doesn't work, it'll be back to Plan B for me: Selling pineapples on the beach in Kauai. YAY!

Happy Thursday, kids! Big news today for folks who like to carry digital guns and shoot them at things. DICE has announced the release of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 console demo and PC beta, which are available to you either right this very second, or not, depending on your platform of choice. Xbox Live players can download the demo starting today from the Xbox Live Marketplace. European PS3 players can pick it up from the Playstation Network on February 4, while North American players need to wait another week until February 11. Haha! Burn!

Finally, PC gamers can download a beta of the PC version today-with the hitch that you must preorder the game first in order to participate. DOH. Man, that's kinda sneaky. (I think there are other ways to score keys, though.)  Click the link at the end of this sentence to find retailers who are supporting the beta program with preorders. Since the first Bad Company wasn't on the PC at all, and it was actually pretty good, I'm calling this a win for PC gamers. Let's tear down those platform walls, Mr. Gorbachev! I'm trying to whine my way into a beta key myself without having to preorder the game. If I succeed, I'll post some impressions as soon as they let me.  By the way, you can download and install the PC beta without the key--you just won't be able to play!  So don't think you're fooling the system--like I did--by just trying to get in without one.  DANGIT.

CD of the Day:

Hey guess what? I'm going to start blogging every day here now! Lucky you!

In lieu of a large staff in which I could foist off various articles---"Hey, you, Chim Chim, write up a piece on Charm Girls Club-STAT!"-I basically have to do most of this by myself for the time being, until EA finally approves the $1 billion budget I've been clamoring for. So, rather than write up a buncha separate "news articles," I'm just going to aggregate the daily EA rigmarole here, all blog-like, for your infotainment pleasure. You're welcome!

First up today, we have the announcement today of EA Sports' 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, a long title the subject of which I am not going to explain for you. Being a typical American, I'm a bit ignorant of the sport myself-other than knowing that they gotta kick the ball into the net-but, being married to a Euro, I also know that the World Cup is a big deal. I was in France during the last World Cup, and holy moly, do they take it seriously over there. One of my uncles-in-law was so stressed about it, he made us all leave the room so he could watch by himself. Then we heard him yelling so loud that we thought maybe he was having a seizure. That was right about the time that that clod Zidane headbutted that other dude. Anyway, yeah, there's a new FIFA game coming, right on the heels of FIFA 10. The difference here is that you get all 199 national teams that took part in the qualification, all 10 official South African stadiums used in the tournament, and stadiums from every qualifying region. You can also go through the entire tournament online, if you want to hear 13-year-olds call you names in a variety of languages.

Second, there's Mass Effect 2, which launched yesterday, but seems to be causing some folks grief in terms of redeeming DLC codes through XBL. From what I understand (and I barely understand it), the issue seems to go something like this: If your XBL gamertag is associated with one email address, and you use a different email addy for the EA account we make you create, there's a disconnect that makes it impossible to get the DLC. Or something like that. There are variations on the problem. All I can really tell you is that the Customer Support people are all over this thing (one patch at least has gone up already), and I know they are staying up on it on the Bioware forums. I'll try to keep you posted if I learn anything more specific, but hopefully more of you are finally getting past the red tape and into the game.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't join the media bandwagon today and comment on the announced Apple iPad. My comment: Ehh. I'm not seeing it. And this is coming from a guy whose first computer was a Macintosh SE, and who is in love with both his iPod and iPhone. An oversized iPod touch, with no camera, USB, Flash support, or ability to multitask? Err, no thanks. I'm also not convinced it's something I want to watch movies or TV on, or read a book on. I've got a laptop for the former, and, well, books for the latter. Of course, the big question for those of us hanging out here is gaming, and on that, I'll just say I'll believe it when I see it. Apple's track record for supporting gaming-up until the iPhone anyway-has been atrocious. Right now, this is a big wait-and-see for me, with a healthy dose of skepticism thrown in.

CD of the Day: Ice Cube's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted.

More tomorrow!

--Jeff Green

So Mass Effect 2 is out today. I don't know what, if anything, that means for you, but over here at EA it's kind of a big deal. How do I know this? Because many of the menu items at the EA Café were changed today in honor of the game. You can always tell when something is a big deal around here when it gets its own menu items.

Here, for example, is one of the things being served today:

The Illusive Man's Special Panini
Sambal Marinated Chicken Breast,
Cabbage, Toasted Sesame Seeds,
Lime Aioli and Bean Sprouts on a Kaiser

For soups, you had a choice today between N7 Spicy Black Bean and Chorizo or Subject Zero Creamy Cauliflower. See? A big deal. (continue reading…)

Good news for the Need for Speed community today as we have a new customization contest to announce, this time you don't need a console to enter, all you need is your computer.

With the NITRO Facebook game now featuring full car customization on all 30 of its models, we are pleased to announce the NITRO Facebook Customization Challenge! (continue reading…)

Hi gang! Happy New Year! Let's hope it's a happy one, anyway, because, frankly, last year blew. We can all use a good one right about now, don't you think?  And even if things don't get a whole lot better right away in the real world (do they ever?), we at least have our videogames to retreat to, thank goodness, and there are all sorts of cool ones coming out in the near future. At the top of my list, of course, is Mass Effect 2, not just because I'm paid (A LOT) to say that, but because I'm a BioWare nerd going all the way back to Baldur's Gate 1. Among BioWare fans, I'm like an O.N.: Original Nerd. I started this nerdboy shizz, knowhutumsayin? Anyway, I bring up that game because I utterly binged on the first one this past week, in order to get my Commander Shepard ready, and am happy to report that I am now good to go. ME2 seems to be on your minds a bit, too, as a lot of the questions were about it this time around, but I tried to balance those out with the usual random assortment of nonsense. Let's get to it! (continue reading…)

Remember the Xmas and New Years holidays? Man, those were good times. It seems like it was barely more than a week ago, doesn't it? Yeah. Well, anyway, before we all took off for points yonder this holiday break, we recorded one final podcast in '09 with two of our bestest pals: former EA intern and man about town Daniel "Husky Hog" Lingen, and IGN's Dana Jongewaard, editor-in-chief of that site's What They Play label. As befits an end-of-year show, the gang shares some of their gaming highlights of 2009, as well as what they're looking forward to in 2010. And there was much merriment.

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