author: Bart Swiatek
EA's CEO: „I Don’t Believe in Directing or Telling Games Teams What to Create”
In a recent interview, Laura Miele, the current chief studio officer at Electronic Arts, talked about her approach to developer teams and their freedom to shape future projects.
IN SHORT:
- Electronic Arts studio head Laura Miele talked in an interview about her approach to game development and the creative freedom offered to development teams;
- The conversation also touched on the contribution that player feedback makes to brand development.
Laura Miele, the chief studios officer at Electronic Arts, recently gave an interview to IGN. The woman talks about her approach to work, and the importance of involving players in the development process. The most interesting thread of the conversation, however, is probably the issue of developers' freedom in their approach to the brands they develop.
Developers have a lot of freedom, but the final say belongs to EA
Apex (Legends - ed.) takes place in the Titanfall world and the Respawn team is incredibly proud of that legacy and brand. That team will determine what the future holds for Apex and Titanfall. I don’t believe in directing or telling games teams what to create, it has to come from the player community, and the inspiration and motivation of developers.
(...) One of the things I did in the first 100 days of my role as head of studios was to spend time with our community leaders for some of our biggest franchises. I asked them to give me their best advice on how we can have a better connection to our players. The biggest theme was - please listen to us about the content players are asking for which resulted in us green lighting Skate, College Football, Command &Conquer and additional content for Battlefront II," said Miele.
However, the head of EA's studios stresses that the final decision on what will be developed is made by Electronic Arts.
"There is a lot of creative autonomy within Electronic Arts but there are certain values and principles we have as a company that we just couldn’t allow to be compromised. (...) "It’s about working to understand what a player’s motivations are and working to meet those. While at the same time recognizing our game teams are tremendously talented at their craft and will determine where the story and game go," Miele said.
Player feedback and input matters a lot
The recently announced Skate 4 is an example of how players themselves can influence the company's decisions. It was created after many years of fans nagging the company on Instagram (it even became a kind of meme). Telemetric data, showing what actually engages users, are also of great importance.
"With Skate for example, we knew that every time we posted on Instagram that the first comment no matter what we posted would be #skate4. But we only want to revisit a series if we’re confident we can build an experience that moves the franchise forward in a contemporary way. "
(...) We take all of these inputs and that gives us a sense of what players are loving and not liking- our studio leaders then work with the game teams to determine how we prioritize and address direct player feedback," said Miele.
