Electronic Arts, one of the world’s biggest developer and publisher of interactive entertainment?$2.95 billion in revenues in fiscal 2006?unveiled its latest game within the cool confines of its new Chicago branch last week.
EA’s open house displayed trendy loft space offering stylish curb appeal while allowing room to grow and inspiring EA’s imaginative staff.
Inside the five story loft building in River North, EA’s Chicago team introduced “Def Jam,” scheduled for a March 2007 release.
But the big news?as if a new international design studio with two upcoming games isn’t exciting enough?is that EA plans to add new 100 developers to its current staff of 150.
That will make EA the state’s largest employer of visual media talent.
“Unlike a lot of other game teams, our studio is very focused on hiring outside the game industry,” said charismatic Kudo Tsunoda, EA Chicago’s VP/general manager and executive producer. We have a lot of team members from TV, film and advertising. We are pushing next generation development and technology to the limits and looking for the best talent to help us to create innovative games.
“We are in a great location downtown in a unique building that gives us access and visibility to the best resources and creative minds of this thriving city. We have talented teams, but we’re always looking for new perspective and ideas to consistently push us to be fresh, innovative, and creative,” he said.
New “Def Jam” is an example of fresh and innovative. The game was created with unprecedented realism by laser scanning the bodies and heads of 37 real live hip hop artist-models, including Ludacris, Bigboi, T.I. and The Game, who worked with EA in development. The end result is a fantastic mix of amazingly realistic sound and crisp, clean visual.
Combined with HD effects of Sony’s soon-to-be released Playstation 3, “Def Jam” promises to blaze new trails as part of a whole new wave in gaming technology that is rapidly becoming available to consumers.
Adding more appeal is “Def Jam’s” focal point of music in the game, rather than the violence that hip hop sometimes represents.
Said EA spokesperson Peter Nguyen, “Def Jam is different?not just a straight up fighting game. Music plays a very important role because it reflects the environment that is depicted in the game.”
Understanding audio’s critical role on the brand of immersive game playing they put out, EA Chicago creates its own, proprietary sound effects in the new audio facility.
“One of our big design philosophies here,” noted Tsunoda, “is that we inject our personal experiences into the core of the games we make. Being in Chicago where the hip hop lifestyle is so prevailing helped us infuse hip hop culture into ?Def Jam.'”
He said the Chicago team is on two upcoming titles?one based on license and one on new intellectual property. They are tight-lipped on details on both projects.
Founded in 1982, EA employs 7,000 worldwide. Other North American development studios besides their Redwood City, CA headquarters are Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles and Orlando.
EA came into the area in 2004 via the acquisition of NuFx, another game company. It was located in NuFX’ quarters in Hoffman Estates.
Among EA’s numerous titles are 27 games that EA boasts have sold more than one million copies and is probably best known for its “Fight Night” line.
EA is located at 215 W. Ohio, phone 312/661-7400. See www.ea.com.
