So here you are, three,000 feet to a higher place Nazi-occupied France, in a Douglas C47 Dakota with other members of the U.Southward. Ground forces's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. Rifle in mitt. Fear in your gut. It'due south June vi, 1944. D 24-hour interval. Y'all're moments away from leaping into the predawn sky and encountering who knows what on the basis. Over the engine's drone, the captain barks an order to get gear up and y'all —

Await, stop the state of war. "There's just non enough happening," says Rick Giolito. Between the opening shot and the captain'due south line, he counted 15 seconds. That'due south too long. "Make it 5." Okay, restart the war.

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

Hold on, this scene could be better. "Could I become smoke in the cabin?" 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 observe your squad and avoid getting captured. It's nighttime and repose.

Too quiet. "I gotta hear Germans yelling outside," says Giolito. "Y'all know what would exist adept? If you heard Germans banging on the door of the barn, trying to get in." Bell adds this to his list.

After taking out some Nazis, you recover a automobile gun and become one-on-ane with a tank, triggering a mighty explosion.

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

In a darkened office in the Los Angeles studio of Electronic Arts, downwards the street from the J. Paul Getty Museum, Giolito and his team are fine-tuning their own work of art, the latest version of Medal of Laurels, or MoH in EA shorthand, a World War Two video game inspired by movies like Saving Individual Ryan. The concluding version of MoH, in which you were a 24-year-sometime lieutenant named James Patterson, arriving on Omaha Beach by gunkhole, sold more than one.3 million copies.

Giolito is MoH'south executive producer, so technically speaking, he creates games. Merely he and his crew are aiming higher. Their goal is to create an authentic historical experience. Like Spielberg. But different and perhaps, as some gamers would dare to say, amend. Instead of merely watching D twenty-four hour period unfold in heart-stopping detail, you are a part of it. Y'all kill Nazis, y'all salve soldiers, you survive the invasion.

Actually, if y'all want to alive to fight another day, y'all better start practicing. War is hell.

Welcome to the entertainment industry of the 21st century, where video games are serious business. Concluding twelvemonth, U.South. computer- and video-game revenue surpassed domestic box-office receipts, and this twelvemonth, the game industry is expected to widen that gap with more than than $ten billion in sales. In this competitive and demanding field, Electronic Arts is a bona fide hit maker. The company, based in Silicon Valley, has created more 50 best-sellers (more than 1 meg copies each) over the past four years. Fiscal twelvemonth 2002 was its best ever, with sixteen all-time-sellers (more than whatsoever other game maker) and $i.7 billion in sales (30% higher than the previous year). Its share price has more than than tripled since Jan 1998, giving EA a market valuation in excess of $x billion. (Disney shares, past dissimilarity, have lost more than l% over that aforementioned menses.)

Much of EA's lineup bears a striking resemblance to a multiplex marquee, with games pegged to the latest Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and James Bond movies. Best-selling sports "franchises" such as FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, and NBA Alive offer new versions each respective flavour. And The Sims, which is at present the best-selling PC game of all time, has branched out to the Web with its showtime online edition.

Simply EA is more than but a successful company in a glamorous industry. It is a model of successful direction for companies in any industry. Lots of organizations struggle to plow ideas into blockbuster products. EA pulls it off past honing the way that information technology develops and markets games: past thinking of its products every bit emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys. By allowing its 12 studios the freedom to innovate while instilling the discipline to meet deadlines. And by not taking its success for granted. "Every time we transport a game, we're as nervous as someone who'southward on Broadway for the outset fourth dimension," says EA president and COO John Riccitiello. "Every time we do it."

The anxiety is understandable. A top title takes anywhere from 12 to 36 months to produce and costs EA between $5 1000000 and $10 million. That'southward twice as much as the company spent only half dozen years ago. Indeed, back in the commencement, all you needed to brand a game was a decent imagination, a solid agreement of algorithms, and a dry basement to call your studio. At present a company like EA has to pull out all the stops: motility-capture sessions with star athletes. Photograph and audio field trips to Europe. Original soundtracks past hot artists. And in the instance of the game that's based on Lord of the Rings: The 2 Towers, voice-overs performed by the film's cast.

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

IT'S IN THE GAME
Fall is crunch time at EA. The company generates lxxx% of its revenue during the holiday flavour. With ship dates looming, many of EA's products are in the final stages of production, and veteran game makers similar Bruce McMillan are playing them 8 to 12 hours a day. McMillan is a luminary in the manufacture, having helped develop Madden NFL, MoH, and Harry Potter. The championship that he's possibly best known for, FIFA Soccer, is the acknowledged sports game in the world. Since its release in 1996, it has generated more than than $1 billion in sales.

An executive vice president and group studio general manager, McMillan spends his mornings calling EA's studios and his afternoons playing the latest "build" of the games. From his Vancouver, British Columbia part, he calls EA's London studio, then follows the sunday, calling production teams in Orlando, Florida; Austin; and finally Los Angeles and San Francisco. At this stage, he'south "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 information technology is," he says. "We can't hide backside 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 desire them to feel more menacing as you get to the higher levels," he says.

McMillan, 39, is lean, with blond hair and a playful air about him. He's an gorging soccer histrion, and his office overlooks EA's soccer field. While tuning FIFA Soccer 2003 yesterday, he noticed that the defense wasn't playing smart. It reacted the same whether yous brought the ball upwards the sideline or to the center of the field. Just in a real friction match, he says, "it's always easier to pass the ball sideways or backwards. That's a basic mechanism of football game." Less than 24 hours afterwards, the FIFA team made the adjustment by tweaking the artificial intelligence. "Some of them were here until four in the morning," he says.

Before in the week, McMillan himself was awake until four in the forenoon reviewing games. His wife woke up and walked into the den to find her husband talking to the Television 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 you used to score the showtime time won't piece of work the next time you endeavour it." After taking a 1-0 lead, he was stymied in the 2nd half, unable to penetrate, and he tried in vain to fend off the calculator's attacks on his goal.

The next morning, his 9-twelvemonth-erstwhile son Alexander was getting set up for school when he noticed the score on the Telly screen: two-1. He looked at his bleary-eyed begetter and said, "You lot lost once again, did you?"

McMillan grew up playing video games in Vancouver. More specifically, he grew upwards at the arcade on Hastings Street, which isn't far from the EA studio where he at present 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 week, unless he has a game that he wants Alex to try. He's one of the company'southward unofficial testers. Similar his father, Alex gives notes too.

Dad, school was bang-up today. I got 35/35 on my spelling exam. . . . I played the game today that you left at the house. Really fun only the command feels slow, and I don't understand all the buttons. . . . The first mission is piece of cake. Took me 5 minutes or so. I'd make information technology harder. . . .The dart gun was cool. . . . Why can't I become back and replay levels to exist better? . . . I hope Harry Potter is doing well. It's going to be fun to play information technology with you on Friday.
Dearest, Alexander

The boy has a knack for uncovering bugs that the creators oasis't come beyond. In an earlier version of FIFA, Alex discovered that he could score by lobbing the ball from midfield all the way into the cyberspace — something an experienced player wouldn't try, because it would never happen in real life. "That collection our producers crazy," McMillan says with a bear on of pride.

A PASSION FOR THE GAME
It'south difficult to overstate how passionate EA game designers are about the products that they make. Nearly everyone you run across mentions that he grew upward playing games: Pong, Pac-Human being, even the obscure text-but games that left everything up to the imagination. "My favorite form of amusement is games," says Danny Bilson, vice president of intellectual-belongings development, who has nonetheless written or directed over 150 hours of television and cowrote the moving-picture show The Rocketeer. "The reason why I work for this company is considering I love games."

Traditionally, games are a guy thing — more specifically, co-ordinate to manufacture demographics, a 16-to-24-year-old-guy thing. As the market place keeps expanding, though, the enthusiasts at EA have to figure out how to make products for people who are not like them. The casual gamer. The novice. EA is going subsequently this audience with new content and game play. Harry Potter and the Magician's Rock was the biggest launch in company history, selling more than 9 million copies in fiscal yr 2002. It was especially popular amidst children under fourteen, a younger audience than EA has traditionally fatigued. It'south easy to understand why. "They may never have played games before, simply they get 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 casual gamers. More than half of its audience is women, unheard of in video games. As one staffer laments, "My aunt blames me for losing her job because she played The Sims and so much at work." Part of the charm is that The Sims isn't a strange or threatening fantasy world. On the contrary, it's contemporary ordinary life. The faux people, or "sims," take out the trash, go to work, brand pizza, make friends, date, and fight — the stuff of real life.

In attracting new customers, though, EA has to be conscientious non to lose its core customers, who don't want to see their beloved games dumbed down for newbies. So EA has begun focusing on the first five minutes of game play. That'due south how long a client at Best Buy or Wal-Mart may spend trying out a game. The claiming is to create an feel that leaves these 2 distinctly different consumers with different impressions of the aforementioned game. It must be easy enough for one, even so hard enough for the other. "Some people don't like to lose, so you've got to give them a positive experience the first time they play," says Bing Gordon, EA's chief creative officer. "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 tin can fulfill: He wants to play basketball like Kobe Bryant. Just listen to him rap in "Get Live."
Ya come across my game is to back ya downwards and bang on ya.
I'yard gonna bring information technology to your whole team,
Tryin' to win the whole thing,
Size me upwards for the band.
I'm celebratin' while the other team's mad, their heads down hating,
waiting to get some other rematch, only we ain't seein' that, believe that.
Next.

EA'due south sports franchises come up out every year. And every year, the challenge is the same: Brand them amend than and unlike from last year's games. "We're trying to change 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 v minor hooks that we mention on the box. Simply there are hundreds of other changes." Ane 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 game announcers John Madden and Al Michaels provide commentary in real time.

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

The recording sessions led to another new — and unexpected — feature. "Snoop said, 'I desire to be in the game,' " says Karp. So 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 engineering, EA hopes to unveil a radical comeback in each iteration. In NBA Alive 2003, that innovation is the new "freestyle control stick." It allows y'all to use both joysticks on the controller, rather than just 1. At present, in addition to moving a player forward, backward, or sideways with the left joystick, you can perform more than sophisticated moves with the right stick, or correct analog.

This is virtually more than than simply adding a new button, says software engineer David Bollo. This is about increasing the level of control, which is a very big deal to gamers. Bollo is more than than happy to demonstrate. He's sitting at his desk in the NBA Live office, 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. "So I tin can palm the ball backside me or I tin can sweep it between my legs," Bollo says, moving various players like a puppeteer. "If I desire to get fancier, I can cradle it to the right, then cross over and spin my fashion through traffic. I'm a big fan of the spin move."

Some improvements come straight from gamers, and non just those at EA. After focus groups in Europe said that FIFA wasn't accurate enough, EA assigned 60 people to fix the game. Ane of the biggest changes involved the ball, and how it remained glued to a player's foot when he dribbled. "We had to do an absolute 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 nearly five years. Chiang and his squad written report the tapes for acrobatic catches and tackles as well every bit for memorable celebrations, similar the time San Diego Chargers wide receiver Tim Dwight tilted the ball back and pretended to beverage it. "What'due south existent to our consumers is what'south on Goggle box," Chiang says.

Actually, EA is going for actuality rather than realism. It's an of import distinction. The games look and feel existent, just not too real. For case, there is no trash talking in NBA Live, the coaches don't get fired in Madden NFL, and at that place'south no ominous blackness smoke or fatalities in NASCAR Thunder. (Although there are plenty of fatalities in MoH, in that location's no blood.) When the cars crash, at that place's merely white smoke, the sign of a less severe blow. At first, NASCAR insisted that the cars, plastered with corporate-sponsor logos, couldn't be damaged fifty-fifty after collisions. Somewhen, though, Chiang's squad convinced NASCAR that bent hoods and crushed bumpers were a part of racing.

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

There is the subject area of trying to empathize ideas in the making. "This is where a lot of great 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 procedure, game makers try to place the creative centre of a game, or what they have come up to call the "artistic 10." At its core, NBA Street, which features rim-ramming three-on-three action, is almost condign a street-ball legend. Def Jam Vendetta, a new championship, is hip-hop meets professional wrestling. "When we were edifice The Sims, we knew what we wanted in the game," Riccitiello says. "Nosotros knew what to put in and exit out. Ditto James Bond 007, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings."

There is the subject area of understanding the audition through focus groups. The discipline of sharing best practices and technologies across the studios through an intranet library. "There's a maxim around here," says Brown in communications. "If somebody develops a improve blade of grass in one game, that grass will be in somebody else's game the next day." There's too the discipline of grooming the adjacent generation of executive producers. EA's "emerging leaders" program gives participants immediate experience in departments exterior their own. In that location is the discipline of studying (well, playing) the competition. "We often know more than about the feature set of our competition'south products than our competition does," boasts Riccitiello.

There is the discipline of methodical projection management. "If you're working on a game and y'all miss your deadlines, you won't be working here very long," says Riccitiello. "This isn't some sort of summer camp — it'south boot campsite. If y'all're non a hunter-carnivore, if you're non willing to piece of work as difficult as you tin can to win in the market, information technology'southward not a good identify for you."

And yet, the staff is encouraged to take creative challenges. Neil Young was the executive producer on Imperial, an online conspiracy thriller that broke 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 beingness a loftier-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'south most important titles.

ON TO THE NEXT GAME
The Academy Award in Rick Giolito's function sits perched on a high shelf in a higher place his desk in EA's Los Angeles studio. "Oh, you lot noticed my Oscar?" he says. Information technology'southward a joke. The award actually belongs to Mark Lasoff, who won a 1997 Oscar for his visual-effects piece of work on Titanic and has joined EA as art director on MoH. That, in a nutshell, sums upwards the cinematic nature of video games today. If you want to create a state of war game that feels every bit compelling as a moving-picture show, 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 alive up to its pedigree, EA bought DreamWorks Interactive and promptly transformed MoH into a best-seller. Similar other EA acquisitions, the studio retains a good bit of its original identity. In fact, at that place was a Spielberg here just the other day, says Giolito. The managing director'southward son dropped by to play video games with a friend.

The MoH production team decided that it was creating more than a game. It was a "deep, interactive cinematic experience," says Giolito. Rather than spell out the thespian's objectives, the game starts in Normandy, and you effigy out your mission by encountering soldiers who instruct yous through scripted blitheness. Last year, when EA debuted a trailer of the game at E3, the manufacture's big merchandise show, people waited in line for three hours to see information technology.

The development team is obsessed with authenticity. It hired retired U.S. Marine Corps captain Dale Dye to serve as a consultant on the game. Dye, who earned three Majestic Hearts fighting in Vietnam, consulted on Saving Private Ryan, Born on the Fourth of July, and Platoon. He teaches the game makers gainsay tactics and how to handle diverse weapons. He leads the camouflage-clad team in maneuvers in a mini – boot camp on a paint-brawl range. "The people making the game go an understanding of what it means to flank and what it means to piece of work equally a squad out in the field," says Giolito.

For the D mean solar day scenes, 6 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 every bit well as audio effects, gives the game its rich, cinematic experience, and hopefully, says sound designer Erik Kraber, it sparks emotions also. "Ultimately, MoH is a first-person shooter, then you're firing your weapon, but in between that, we effort to create zipper to character and personality," says Kraber. "So if yous lose someone in battle, it's not taken lightly. That's 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'south How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Jackson has helped refine the MoH preproduction procedure, which Giolito is sharing with other EA studios. First, a group armed with Post-it Notes gathers in a pocket-size briefing room that'due south decorated with camouflage netting. Everyone tosses out dramatic moments to include in the game, such as an ambush, a reunion, or a dream sequence. And then they start rearranging the Post-its to build the narrative arc of the story. It'southward a common script-writing technique, says Jackson, known as "pace-outlining."

Jackson and his team of illustrators make digital sketches of each moment (they call them "story beats") and cord them together in an "animatic" (something that resembles a flip book of black-and-white activity scenes that can exist screened like a short film). Kraber adds the music and sound effects. The result is a design outline of one level of the game, the equivalent of a unmarried chapter in the story. Jackson too charts the visual progression of activity, tone, shape, and intensity to brand certain that each element builds to a climactic point, like the Dow on an excellent day. "Y'all go a better story this way," he says.

In just four weeks' fourth dimension, the MoH team and EA executives accept a articulate idea of a game's tone, mood, and objective. "I was looking for a amend way to communicate to senior direction what we're doing," says Giolito. "At present they can see how the game unfolds moment by moment. Information technology'south similar a play or a pic."

Really, in the case of MoH, it's more than like a miniseries. Adjacent year'due south installment involves dramatic rescues, unexpected reunions, surprise attacks, and whatsoever number of plot twists. Globe War II lasted half dozen years, merely EA is hoping that MoH will final a lot longer. Giolito, for 1, isn't worried about running out of ideas. He picks up a alphabetic character of citation most a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Laurels. After the soldier's unit was attacked, he was shot at and nearly killed past a grenade, yet he nonetheless managed to become after a motorcar gunner and later clear an airfield so that the wounded could be airlifted off the battlefield.

Giolito shakes his caput, amazed. It doesn't matter that this soldier fought in Vietnam. Heroism is heroism. "Existent life spins more intricate, interesting stories than anybody could ever make up," Giolito says. "I'll be dead and buried before we explore every possible story in this game."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in Baltimore. He has still to win a game in Madden NFL 2003. Acquire more well-nigh Electronic Arts on the Web (www.ea.com).

Sidebar: THE DISCIPLINE OF Creativity

At Electronic Arts, creativity is built on a foundation of management subject. EA fifty-fifty takes a disciplined arroyo to the challenge of developing creative leaders. A dozen or so producers and designers at each studio come across throughout the year for a series of workshops. A dancer came in to talk well-nigh how movement tin be used to express concrete and emotional states. A picture expert talked near the utilize of music in silent films to heighten the action. The idea behind the program is unproblematic yet constructive, says Andy Billings, vice president of human resources and organizational development: Expose artistic leaders to other art forms and new ideas, and see 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-picture industry in its infancy, when it had been around for only 25 years, he told the group. "That's where y'all are now," said Jenkins. "Video games will be the most important American art form for the 21st century."

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

Over 2 days at the Vancouver studio, EA'south 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 thespian'south mind even when the console is switched off.

That's how the creativity sessions are supposed to work as well. "We're taking a grouping of people who more than or less grew upward with 'fight or flight' video games and saying, We tin can't only have great graphics," says Rusty Rueff, senior VP of human resources at EA. "In that location has to be deep, nuanced storytelling."

Betwixt presentations, producers and designers played video games. As they deconstructed competitors, there was gleeful criticism, along with something else: genuine admiration when they saw something unexpected. They couldn't help it. Deep down, they're gamers.