Peter Moore Blog

Back from Season Opener

2008-05-11T17:02:00Z

Back home after a big week up in Vancouver. We hosted our first-ever EA SPORTS Season Opener, a showcase of most of our upcoming games for this year for media from all over the world. It was a great chance to give early looks at our new games to media who had come from near and far to get a taste of what they can see this year from EA SPORTS.

You may have read some of the news and game previews that have come out of the event over the past few days. A few things I wanted to highlight:

•   I’ve mentioned a number of times that a real priority for us as the gaming industry evolves is diversifying our portfolio. We unveiled two new initiatives last week that I think we will do that.
o   We announced a new sub-brand with games designed for a broad casual sports gaming audience. EA SPORTS Freestyle replaces EA SPORTS Big, and we plan to ship three new games in the next year under this brand. FaceBreaker, coming in September, will be the first. While no announcements have been made, I’m also very interested in the health and fitness space and think we can be a leader in this space. Afterall, I was a P.E. teacher years and years ago and am excited about what we could do here.
o   We also announced an initiative for the Wii called “All-Play”. We’re designing five of our most popular franchises exclusively for the Wii this year and they’ll feature unique controls, unique modes, unique presentation, and unique packaging. All-Play is a much more all-encompassing design philosophy that expands significantly on last year’s Family Play control scheme in Madden, FIFA and NBA LIVE.

•   Last Wednesday, we confirmed that Fight Night Round 4 is in development and slated to release in 2009. It was an honor to have three of boxing’s best at EAC to make the announcement. You’ll see below that Winky Wright, Lennox Lewis and Sugar Ray Leonard look more at home in the ring that I do, but it was sure fun listening to them talk about the sport and picking their brains for ideas for Fight Night. We obviously also listen to feedback from the fans on what you want to see in our games, and so we’re also excited to be bringing Mike Tyson back to videogame boxing for the first time in nearly a decade. That’s something fans have been begging for.

•   I also had a chance to catch up with a number of our producers over the past week and remain really motivated by the great work that’s being done. After we had our first announcement about this year’s Tiger Woods game last week, we had some questions about some of the new features. So I caught up with Executive Producer Mike Taramykin and asked him to clarify a few things they have planned for this year. Click here to see what Mike had to say.

Cheers,

Peter

One on One with Tiger EP Mike Taramykin

2008-05-11T16:51:00Z

Last week we unveiled some of the new features in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09. A few of you had questions about the new game, so I caught up with Executive Producer Mike Taramykin to get the scoop on what we can expect to see this August.

Q: Sounds like an interesting concept with Tiger’s coach, Hank Haney, playing a big role in this year’s game. Can you tell me a little more about what role he plays?

MT: A big part of this year’s game is that the experience changes based on an individual player’s performance. We have added a new dynamic attribute system that adjusts based on how you play, a club tuner feature that allows players to customize every club in their bag, and custom training drills are based on actual shots that players made on the course. All of these features are tied together and presented to you by Tiger's own coach, Hank Haney.
So after every round of golf Hank will create personalized training drills based on how you just played, similar to how he works with Tiger in real life. And when players go into the Club Tuner, Hank will help identify club settings that will maximize your personal performance.
What we tried to do was closely mimic the real life relationship that Tiger and Hank share, and bring that directly to players of our game.

Q: I know a lot of people were fans of GamerNet last year. What are you doing to enhance it this year?

MT: We’ve done a lot of great things to evolve the GamerNet experience.
First, we’ve brought GamerNet challenges into every mode of the game. So if you happen to be playing PGA TOUR mode and find yourself at the tee of a hole that has a long drive challenge posted on GamerNet, then we’ll bring that challenge right to you and give you a chance to earn GamerNet points while you play your TOUR event. We do the same for closest to the pin, and long putt challenges. The idea is to surface GamerNet content throughout the other modes and give players the ability to build up points without the need to specifically go into the GamerNet mode. It’s also worth mentioning that GamerNet will always favor challenges posted by your friends when choosing which random challenges to give you.
Another thing that we’ve added to GamerNet is that we’ve created a “Daily Winner” contest to keep track of who has won the most points on any given day. We then track overall winners based on number of days that they have won, rather than just a total number of points.
We also made saving GamerNet challenges much easier. Players can now post challenges directly from the golf course without the need to first save local clips. It really improves the overall experience.

Q: I know you guys have been working on a new online engine. What is Simultaneous Play going to mean to the online experience?

MT: Simultaneous Play allows up to 4 players to play a round of golf without having to watch each of their opponents take their shots. Instead, everybody sees a colored ball trail that represents each of their opponents along with onscreen information that tells you what shot each of them is on.
If someone finishes a hole early, then they switch to a spectator mode and can watch any of their opponents play via an interactive camera system.
The biggest impact that Simultaneous Play will have on the online experience is that you can now play MORE games, because 4 player rounds will take the same amount of time as playing by yourself. This is something we consistently have heard that we needed to streamline the length of play and this is another thing that will really improve the overall experience.

Thanks Mike and look forward to hearing more about Tiger in the months to come.

Cheers,

Peter

Life at EA Redwood Shores

2008-05-05T21:52:00Z

Last month, we had part 1 of a behind-the-scenes taste of life at EA Redwood Shores, where I am based full time. Last time, we looked at our player’s lounge, sports bar and more. This week, I wanted to take you around the rest of the campus here in Redwood Shores, including a look at the soccer pitch, basketball court and more.

Part 1

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Part 2
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As I’ve mentioned, our two main development studios are just outside of Vancouver (EA Canada) and in Orlando (Tiburon), and I’ll look forward to tours of those studios at some point as well.

Coming soon: more Q&A with our producers on Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, NASCAR, NCAA Football and more.

Cheers,

Peter

Answering YOUR Questions!

2008-05-01T23:14:00Z

We’re back again with more answers to some of the questions you’ve been posing to me here on the blog. As I’ve said in the past, both myself and our development teams enjoy reading all the comments and questions that have been streaming in. While we can’t respond to everything, I do try at least once a month to take a handful of questions straight to the teams and get the answers you are looking for.

Of course, as we get closer to launch on most of our franchises, producers will be keeping blogs and handling your questions directly on the individual product websites.

Pdro said:
“Hello peter moore, i dont get what your tying to say in this blog but instead of working on that site, why dont you help fix easports site up, the login is always messed up. the site needs to be cleaned up, and easports site forums are the worst. nothing but spam and post that makes no sence. oh update the madden09 site, im curious to see what the new game looks like, im tired of seing old maddens info on there. i wana see 09 news! but ya even i use the internt too much. especilly easports site as you can see by me replying here and the developer post on the forums.
good luck with easports title, dosnt seem your making much of an effort on the games. your more focusd on myfootballclub site an the final4 an stuff. Lol”

Peter: What login problems are you having? If you are having trouble with your password, please try the “forgot password” option where your password will be e-mailed to the e-mail address you originally signed up for. Otherwise, if you can’t remember, you could always create another account. What parts of the site are you talking about cleaning up? We have the latest information that’s available for our titles on there, including the Madden NFL 09 site which launched last week when we announced Brett Favre as our new cover athlete for the game.
As for the myfootballclub website, I do like to spend some of my free time on that site interacting with what they have to offer, but I mention the site because we have our own social networking sites available right now (www.easportsworld.com and www.easportsfootball.com ). In this blog, I won’t just touch on things going on in the business of EA SPORTS, but I’ll talk about things outside EA SPORTS and the industry all together that interest me.]

Dan said:
“As both a PS3 and Xbox 360 owner, I'm happy that both versions of NCAA 09 Football will be running at a smooth, 60 FPS. Now, I have some variety in choosing which version of the game I want to buy! Can we expect the same from Madden '09?”

Phil Frazier: Both the PS3 and X360 versions of Madden will run at a smooth 60FPS. Even better, while trying to squeeze performance out of each console we’ve managed to significantly improve the visuals of the game this year.

Henry said:
“I've been playing Madden for a long time and really enjoy the Game. The question I have is for the upcoming Madden, will there be a way to add previous version controls for Madden 09.(ie Madden 02,03,05): While some of the controls can be customized, it would be nice to pick a particular year that can be selected by the user.”

Phil Frazier: The Madden experience is tuned specifically for the default set of controls. While there was a significant change to our control scheme when we made the jump from current to next gen, our controls each year stay mostly the same so that our fans don’t have to completely re-learn the game. Madden 09 does not have controls from specific versions of Madden but we do offer a lot in terms of customization. All of the customization options in the game allow any user to alter their experience so that the game delivers their exact ideal football experience.

Don Juan said:
“I just looked at a youtube video of nfl fever 2002..The makers of NFL Fever were able to use the specs of original Xbox to put towels on their player models 6 years ago...How come the makers of Madden and NCAA football still haven't figured out how to put towels and other realistic additions on their player models?”

Dale Jackson: Madden 09 features extremely realistic player models. The models this year have been completely rebuilt, and along with the upgraded visuals, provide the most realistic looking sports game ever. We don’t have towels this year but will make sure this gets some serious consideration for future iterations.

More from NYC with Brett Favre!

2008-04-27T18:53:00Z

Following our unveiling Thursday evening of Brett Favre as the Madden NFL 09 cover athlete on The Late Show with David Letterman, we followed up with a luncheon in New York City honoring the legendary quarterback on Friday.

Sponsored by EA SPORTS, we brought in Sterling Sharpe, former teammate of Brett's in Green Bay, as the MC. Also present were Steve Mariucci, who was Brett's QB coach in the early years, as well as Matt Hasselbeck, who was back-up to Brett in Green Bay before moving to Seattle.

I've attached some exclusive pictures of the event, including the presentation to Brett of a limited-edition Xbox 360 featuring the cover artwork. Great event, honoring a tremendous athlete and human being.

Brett Favre is the Madden NFL 09 Cover Guy!

2008-04-25T07:14:00Z

As you may have heard by now, we tonight announced Brett Favre as our cover athlete for Madden NFL 09. Brett unveiled the new packaging on The Late Show with David Letterman, and I was proud to be present at the taping to see the announcement first hand.

It is with great pride that we take the bold step of featuring a retired player on the front of packaging, an honor normally reserved for a player at the peak of his game. I say with great pride, because some may question the marketing strategy behind this (and many at EA did just that, quite frankly). I don't for one minute.

In this, the 20th year of this storied game franchise, as far as I was concerned there was only one choice. As we look back over the past couple of decades in the NFL, Brett stands out to me personally as a beacon for everything that made me a huge fan of this great game from almost the moment I arrived from the UK in the early eighties (and became a fan of the LA Rams, with Vince Ferragamo at QB, but that’s a story for another posting…).

Forget all of his record-breaking stats – it was his approach to every game he played, his leadership and spirit on the field, his “gun-slinger” style in an era of robotic QB’s, and most of all the way he wore his heart on his sleeve for us all to see. I can’t forget the Monday night game versus the Raiders the night after his father unexpectedly died, when he threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns. Unless you were wearing silver and black that night, you both cheered and cried for him.

His fight with addiction to prescription drugs, his wife Deanna’s battle with cancer soon after his father died…all of this makes this good old boy from Mississippi one of my favorite players of all time. Nobody deserves more to be on the cover of our game this year than Brett Favre. So you can question whether having a retired player on the cover is a smart move, but we made this decision for one reason, and one reason alone… because it was the right thing to do.

Writing from NYC...

2008-04-24T22:21:00Z

Hi everyone, greetings from new york, where I'm in line for tonight's taping of The Late Show with David Letterman. More updates from a big two days in nyc later...

Draft Time

2008-04-23T01:00:00Z

So I see the Dolphins have already signed Jake Long to a 5-year contract. So much for any suspense on Saturday morning when the draft gets underway.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’ve mentioned a couple of times already that I’m getting excited for NFL Head Coach. I keep seeing really good things, and think this is my kind of game. Which is why I wanted to call your attention, if you haven’t already seen it, to our announcement today that we’re going to ship NFL Head Coach as a standalone game. I have to admit, even I was surprised by how much feedback we’ve gotten the past few weeks since we announced it as a featured item of our Madden Collector’s edition. That’ still going to be the first place to get it, but keep an eye out for NFL Head Coach on Sept. 2 on its own.

Incidentally, we also released a simulation of this weekend’s draft using the game engine from Head Coach. We had Jake Long going No. 1. Surprising from my perspective that we have seven ACC guys going in the first round. I thought that was a basketball conference! Not surprising was that USC led the way with four players in the first round. And how about Cal’s DeSean Jackson, my own personal favorite in the draft. He may be small, but whoever gets him is going to be happy they did.

PS. My day was officially ruined by Liverpool’s John Arne Riise’s tragic own goal with almost the last touch of the game versus Chelsea in the Champion’s League. Tough to go to Stamford Bridge and pull out a win now…

The Fascinating Tale of the Ebbsfleet United

2008-04-22T04:12:00Z

Who hasn’t dreamed of being an owner of a sports team? All of us. And for the princely sum of £35 (approximately $75), you too can be the owner of Ebbsfleet United Football Club, an English team that was purchased by approximately 30,000 members of MyFootballClub.co.uk, an innovative experiment in social networking being applied to sports club ownership.

I recently had the chance to speak with Will Brooks, a soccer journalist in the UK who is the creative mind and founder of MyFootballClub.co.uk, and discovered what provided the impetus for him and a small team of friends and colleagues that developed this unique concept.

It’s been a fascinating experiment where the community purchased Ebbsfleet United FC, a lower league team in financial difficulty, who since the acquisition are now poised to play for a major trophy at the famed Wembley Stadium in London in early May. Mobilization of such a large community of like-minded individuals would clearly have not have been possible in the pre-internet days.

Will told me how he came up with the idea as a young fan of Fulham, one of the smaller London clubs, and how annoyed he used to get watching his team play and thinking that he could do better if only he had more power and authority within the club itself.

As a soccer journalist he was well aware of the passion and intensity that soccer fans around the world have when it comes to their clubs. After floating the idea on a website to interested fans, he finally plucked up the courage to ask for the money and was overwhelmed in the first 24-48 hours with payments to his PayPal account. The success of this experimentation in ownership has spawned multiple requests from around the world, from similar groups who are looking to purchase their clubs in their own countries, including here in the United States. In fact, my team, Liverpool FC, who are currently undergoing some turmoil in the boardroom with their ownership structure, also have numerous websites looking to try and mobilize their very passionate fan base to try to actually buy the club back for the fans.

Here are some excerpts from what was a fascinating conversation with Will:

ON OWNERSHIP:
“People are obsessed with the idea of ownership, that’s what we’ve found. Almost more than picking the team, people love the idea of owning the team. But we do have huge challenges. The biggest thing is making people feel like each day they are making decisions and involved.”

ON GETTING TO WEMBLEY:
“I followed Fulham since I was four years old, when I was playing with crayons and coloring books. I’ve been going every season and we never went to Wembley. So to have made it there is very surreal. It’s amazing what we went through, and when we won that game I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated quite like it. There was this release of enormous stress because it was so important to us. What a crucial win. It’s really very weird getting to Wembley and it’s even more work … but good work.”

ON COMING UP WITH THE IDEA:
“It probably goes back to the mid 80s when I’d go to see Fulham and the team was really struggling for money. There was always the threat of property developers buying up this prime real estate on the River Thames, and I used to look at the 3,000 or 4,000 fans in the stadium and think they are clearly die-hard because they certainly weren’t serving up great fare on the pitch. I’d think to myself that if everyone put in 500 or 1,000 pounds, we could easily buy the club (Fulham). And everyone loved the club so much that they would.

“I’ve always thought that lots of people putting in a small amount of money was much more potent than one or two people putting in a large amount of money.

“I also think football fans are capable of making the right decisions and having good instinct on issues. I’ve always thought clubs should listen to fans more, from choosing design of kits and to choosing who the sponsors are.

“So there was a mix of all of those things that led us to Ebbsfleet, and of course the internet makes it all possible.”

ON GETTING STARTED:
“The beauty of it was that I have a few friends who are good at making websites and so we launched a very simple website just to float the idea. For a couple of years I had approached various clubs about doing this. All the owners loved the idea but were scared a bit by it. So we thought we should just put the idea out there and gauge the interest, which was incredible. In three months, I think we had 50,000 views and once the money started coming in we had 500,000 pounds in 10 days. It was this amazing turnaround from clubs being scared to be involved with us to all of a sudden everyone wanted to be involved.

“I thought it was a good idea, or I wouldn’t have put up the website. But I didn’t realize how big it would get. Every day there were new press hits, new sponsorship opportunities.”

ON FANS PICKING THE ROSTER:
“There’s this raging debate online right now going on, where some people don’t want anything to do with it, and some who say that’s why I signed up for it. There’s an ongoing heated debate on what level should owners have impact on the team.

“I think it’s healthy, especially when you look at the pressure that’s on a typical manager, for the fans to play a role. Is it right that all that pressure is on one person? I like the idea of consulting due process and we can strike the right balance. It might even make a manager’s job more secure. An average manager only lasts 16 months. I think that’s because people see them as either brilliant or rubbish. But I hope we can go in between and create a much more healthy environment.

“Football fans won’t rush to decisions, they’ll be sensible. People think it’s madness, but I think we’re seeing sensible choices.”

ON THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE:
“It’s a unique structure. More than about the football, this is the first ever website community takeover of a business. This could turn into other things. You could buy a theater. You could do this in lots of areas. We’re built on a trust structure. A trust is the vehicle through which we record the money.”

ON WHAT SCARES HIM:
“The question will be how to retain people in year two. About seven percent have already signed up in year two and three. Every day we get 20-30 new people signing up, and if we’re in the news it’s more like 100.

“We haven’t had a lot of time to catch our breath and step aside and look at the big picture. We really want to focus on the next 3-4 months and get to a position where we’re in a good position to retain people.

“I try to remind people that the first year 35 pounds is helping to buy the club, but the second year’s 35 pounds will allow you to have a little more fun. That’s my biggest call to members to stay on. We have a busy six months ahead.”

ON EXPANSION:
“I think I’ve had a request from someone in almost every football-playing country to please come do this for us. Rightly or wrongly, I’m not interesting in doing any franchising just yet. We want to make this one club huge, make this one club work. We’d like to see people jump at this one and make this one work. I’ve been so focused on getting this one to work, that I didn’t want to distract myself.”

ON PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE:
“Maybe it’s short sighted of me, but I really want to see what happens in year two. I’d really love to see 30,000 happy members above anything else right now.”

In a world where sports, to many people nowadays, mean syringes or videotapes, outlandish salaries or boorish behavior, it is refreshing to see how one individual can bring together so many people who individually would have no opportunity to have an ownership interest in a professional sports club but together can live out their dreams of being in a position of influence with their team.

This endeavor by Will Brooks is a fascinating experiment that no doubt will spawn similar communities here in the United States.

Back from the FINAL FOUR!

2008-04-09T01:20:00Z

I’m back from a great couple of days last weekend in San Antonio. What a great place to go for the Final Four. The weather was perfect and the fans were going crazy. Especially the Kansas fans … and that was before last night’s game.

I even commented first thing Saturday morning that the Jayhawks fans really seemed to be in the majority. I wasn’t able to stay through the game last night. I can only imagine the scene after last night’s incredible comeback win.

I was down in San Antonio with our NCAA March Madness team, who was there on the ground all weekend interacting with all the college hoops fans. We had videogame tournaments running at Hoop City as well as right off the Riverwalk at one of the local Champs stores there. We also had a great chance to catch up with some partners and some old friends in town over the weekend.

If you’re a sports fan and you’ve never been to the Final Four – you’ve got to do it.

Off to the Final Four

2008-04-04T07:04:00Z

I’m off with my son to go to the Final Four tomorrow in San Antonio. Should be a weekend of great food, great weather and great basketball. I’ll be sure to share some pictures of our weekend when I get back.

But I have to admit ... as much as I like college hoops, I’m already ready for college football season to begin.

Anyone have a chance to check out the news we released yesterday about new features in NCAA Football 09 ?

Let me know what you think...

- Peter

Cheating, Hot Zones and Approachability

2008-04-04T06:43:00Z

As I’ve mentioned previously, I enjoy reading a lot of the very colorful comments many of you have been providing on my blog. I now regularly take many of the ideas and questions I see straight to our development teams and look for answers. I figured it would only make sense if I started sharing some of what I've been finding out.

Again, the best way to get the scoop is to go straight to the source – our production teams. And about once a month or so, I’ll be trying to report back at least a handful of answers to your most commonly asked questions. Of course, as we get closer to launch on many of this year’s games you’ll want to view our producer blogs on each product website as well for even more detail.

This week, we talk NBA LIVE and Madden.

Tim G says “There's stuff that should just not happen in basketball games when there's no pressure on your character; going out of bounds on an inbound, stepping back over center court. There’s a lot of frustrating issues in both games but Live they are far more prevalent. Also the "Hot Zones" are quite obnoxious looking. Colouring the entire court during play is ridiculous, and 2k's solution of cell-phone-style signal bars is much better.”

Here’s what Brian Ullrich, our line producer for NBA LIVE had to say about hotzones:

“We built our hotzones based on the real hotspots tracked by the NBA, so the look was based on that. We found we had to add a third color (the NBA ones are red, blue, and a kind of brown color) to make them understandable. We didn't have as much rendering or systems support on hotzones as we would have liked. The hotzones were done late in the schedule and there wasn't much time to iterate on them once they were done. We tried a bunch of color combinations and found the ones the best we could do in the time we had. We are improving them significantly this year so stay tuned.”

Regarding Inbounds/Center Court Issues, Brian says:

“We had many problems around accurately determining exactly where all of a player's limbs are with respect to out of bounds. At the end of last year this resulted in players being called out of bounds more than they should have, just through the act of receiving a pass, dribbling in place, etc. The only way we could fix it was to make the out of bounds call pretty generous. Usually the camera is far enough away that you don't notice this, but when you look at plays on instant replay it becomes noticeable. We will be tuning this again this year, and it will be better, but this is something I doubt we’ll ever be able to keep it from happening in all cases.”

AJ says, “My league has been running now since Madden 06. We love being able to draft our teams from scratch and taking them online and playing a full 16 game schedule and playoffs included. Problem is this year there are no stats after the games? Why not Mr. Moore? I ask you to allow us to have the stats of our games, custom teams or not.”

Here’s what Dale Jackson, our Executive Producer for Madden NFL told me:

“Year after year, the discussion of league play and stat tracking has been a recurring theme in feedback on Madden. Madden NFL 09 will address this feedback directly. Without giving too much away, let’s just say that those who enjoy online stats won’t be disappointed. Based on the amount we see this requested in forums, we’re very excited about our features we have planned here.”

Ron says, “ Mr. Moore, I recall in an interview with Game Informer you mentioned something along the lines of making Madden more playable for casual gamers. Is there way to customize the engine to satisfy the casual as well as the hardcore gamer who wants more simulation and realism? For instance why not just create a separate arcade mode for the casual user who knows very little about football. This can possibly perhaps increase your sales which from what I understand decreased last year.”

Great question, Ron. I’ll take this one first. I’m passionate about making our games more approachable without “dumbing down” the experience. Sometimes that means new modes (as you point out), sometimes that means creating different control schemes (as we did last year with Family Play on our Wii games), but it’s also very important that this also mean creating approachability in our core game experiences as well. Tuning our games to be fun and approachable regardless of what your skill level is at first and making them adapt to meet your skill level.

Here’s Dale’s take on this:

“Designing features that make the game more approachable while also adding a layer of depth for the hardcore can be tricky. Madden NFL 09 has new features that adapt the experience to be fun no matter what your level of skill. On top of that, it’s highly customizable for those that enjoy tweaking the game themselves.”

Smokecapone says, “What are you guys going to do about cheating in online gaming? I play Madden religiously (PS3) even though the game is not what it is on the PS2. I get tired like many others that play the game the way it’s played in reality to go home from work or whatever and relax and chill by playing a quick game online only to be cheated because the idiot can’t pick up on basic controls of Madden."

Madden 20th Anniversary and More!

2008-04-01T19:34:00Z

As I mentioned when we migrated to this new format for the blog a couple of weeks ago, one of the things I was looking forward to being able to do was to share more videos. As we get deeper into the production and launch cycle for our 2008 games, we’ll have plenty to share. To get things started, I wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes taste of life at EA Redwood Shores, where I am based full time. Obviously, our two main development studios are just outside of Vancouver (EA Canada) and in Orlando (Tiburon), but I thought you may like a look at what goes on back in the Bay Area, including our player’s lounge, sports bar, my desk and video conferencing area. Take a look.

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By now, I gather you’ve all seen our news last week about our Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition. As anticipation starts to grow for August, there were a few common themes that I wanted to pick up on from many of the posts and chatter on the boards the past few days.

1. Reviews were mixed when we shipped NFL Head Coach a couple of years ago. Believe me, I think I’ve heard most of the good and bad on that one, mostly from our development teams who are acutely aware of everything you liked and didn’t like…down to the finest details. From what I’ve seen of new Head Coach, this is an entirely new game. I know you don’t want to just hear that from me, so listen to our producers over the next few months talk and show you everything they’ve done to re-work a concept that has a ton of potential, especially with how we’re creating a connected experience between Madden and Head Coach.

2. We knew that our decision to not develop this year’s Madden for the PC would be an unpopular decision in some circles. But I’ll reiterate what I said a couple of weeks ago in this space…the PC presents some very serious business challenges to us in the sports category, particularly because so many of you all are playing your favorite sports games on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. We are committed to shipping a limited number of our games on the PC this year, but we’ve also had to cut a few of our games from the platform. We do have ideas for how to revitalize the PC for sports games and the types of games that are best suited to the platform, and we’ll continue to explore those.

Couple of other quick notes…

Last time I mentioned that I’d be speaking with Will Brooks, founder of MyFootballClub.co.uk. We had a terrific conversation late last week, and I’ll be sharing some of that over the next couple of weeks on the blog. You don’t have to be a football fan to find what Will is doing fascinating, so hopefully that will be something to look forward to.

You’ll no doubt be happy to hear that I have climbed out of the basement of the EA SPORTS March Madness bracket (which, by the way, benefits a great charitable organization, the Jimmy V Foundation - http://www.jimmyv.org/). I head to San Antonio for The Final Four on Friday, and I will report back to you on what goes on during this great sports weekend.

Liverpool produced a workmanlike performance to beat Everton on Sunday morning, and unlike last weekend, made the early alarm call worthwhile. Big game versus Arsenal on Wednesday night – wish us luck.

Oh, and play ball!!! Go Sox…

March 27th

2008-03-27T18:26:00Z

Many of you will have seen this announced today, but just in case, I wanted to make everyone aware of this exciting announcement from EA SPORTS regarding Madden 09. Everyone here is so proud of having reached this incredible milestone with our storied Madden franchise, and we couldn’t be more delighted to offer this collector’s edition to commemorate the 20th anniversary. For more information, read this release we just sent out.

Press Release

March 26th

2008-03-27T03:14:00Z

So it’s 6am Sunday and I’m here in the office at Redwood Shores. Why? Workaholic? Nope. Stupid? It has been said. No, I’m watching my Mighty Reds vs. Man U on Setanta Sports in the EA SPORTS Bar…
And I wish I had never bothered. Down to 10 men after Mascherano’s completely avoidable red card (never get in the referee’s face while you already have a yellow card), Liverpool look second-rate in the face of the United onslaught, and any dreams of a Premier League title this year are now dashed once-and-for-all.

On a more positive note, as you probably know, all of our development work and brand and product marketing is conducted in our studios in Vancouver (EAC) and Orlando (Tiburon). I spend a lot of time at both studios, and this past Thursday was a particularly fun trip for me up to EAC in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. Purpose of my trip was to spend a day with our very talented FIFA team. It was both an educational as well as motivating day for me. I got to visit with many of the team at their workstations, and get a deeper understanding of the work we doing to maintain our positive momentum in the very competitive soccer category. It was also personally fulfilling to me to interact with so many teammates that are supremely passionate about their work (as well as “the beautiful game”).

While I can’t divulge much about what I saw as we prepare for a busy soccer year, with our Euro 2008 game shipping in advance of the tournament being held in Austria and Switzerland, and then of course our FIFA game later in the year, I can tell you that the team continues to do stellar work. Anyone that is a fan of the franchise has every reason to feel excited about what is on tap for 2008. I also should mention that one of the best moments of my day was getting out on the pitch and playing some soccer at lunch time with the team. Here’s a picture of the team.

You’ve also heard me start to talk about what a special year this is going to be for EA SPORTS with the 20th anniversary of Madden upon us. As our planning and development continues to kick into high gear, I can promise you this is going to be a year to remember. Even though I have people starting to stop me in the halls even at EA trying to get the latest scoop on this year’s game — who’s going to be on the cover, what bands are on the soundtrack, what are Tom Brady’s ratings going to be, etc. — I’m sworn to secrecy to not divulge too many details until next month. But I can tell you this, we do have some news to announce in the next day or two. Keep an eye out for the first in what will be a series of announcements over the next few months about the Madden 20th anniversary...

As a preview to my next posting take a look at the following web site: http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/index

For the princely sum of £35 (about $75), I am an part “owner” of the club. It is a fascinating experiment in social networking applied to sports. Stay tuned for a interview with Will Brooks, a UK sports journalist who is the creator of the concept.

I'd be remiss if I didn’t mention the start of the NCAA Tournament last weekend. If only I had put a little more faith into the simulation we ran with our NCAA March Madness 08 game engine, which correctly predicted 13 of the Sweet 16, I wouldn’t be bringing up the rear in our friendly EA office pool. That’s right, I’m in DEAD LAST. I have to say, kind of an embarrassing. But, what do I know about college basketball?

- Peter