Interview with Edge Magazine on recruitment in Gaming

1. s the game industry expands, the convincing graduates that they can enter the issue. I would say that EA covers the key benefits
A audience that plays games becomes industry with the skills they have and progress compared to some of the other industries that
broader and the craft of making games up. It could be persuading women to come into we’re recruiting from, and if you take film, it’s
becomes more sophisticated, developers and the games industry and show them what career mainly made up of contractors, who obviously
publishers have found the task of attracting development they can have. That can be a only get a set fee and none of these benefits. In
new talent a growing challenge. In fact, many challenge, because there’s that perception of terms of salary our biggest challenge is with the
industry leaders have recognised that game the industry as being quite male and geeky. But experienced talent pool contracting, because we
production is facing a recruitment crisis, with with the advent of casual gaming that’s not the have worries that someone accepting an offer
too few skilled graduate programmers coming industry we work in today. Some of the senior from EA may get offers from other companies as
out of UK universities to satisfy demand. As leaders at EA – Fiona Sperry at Criterion Games, well and leverage their salary upwards with
a result, recruiters are having to look outside Kathy Vrabeck, president of the casual gaming that. That leads to salary inflation. Again, these
the traditional avenues of computer science division, and Nancy Smith, who leads The Sims. are things that we’re learning, as well as career
students that only ever wanted to make games, So, instead of competing with gaming development. How they receive training and
to women that might never have considered a competitors, let’s reach outside the industry, opportunities to be promoted stands us in a
career in the field, and into other industries, attract more graduates and females and people better position in the future.
from film to financial services.
As its global head of talent brand,
Matthew Jeffery is in charge of promoting
the idea of working at Electronic Arts, and in
videogames in general, to these fresh pools
of potential employees. But he faces a big
challenge – perceptions of working in the
game industry range from overwork and bad
management, as epitomised by 2004’s infamous
EA Spouse blog, to stereotypes of companies from industries we haven’t recruited from Is it still the case that people will work for
purely staffed by introverted and awkward before – could be film, public sector or financial little to get a foothold in the industry?
young males. We sat down with him to discuss services. Interestingly, in the UK, some of our A few years ago some games companies saw
EA’s recruitment strategy, the effects of anti-EA most recent programmer hires were from the graduates as cheap labour, but now the point is
chatter on the internet, and the possibilities Ministry of Defence in missile programming. that a graduate is the future of your company
newcomers to the industry can bring to games. Their knowledge of AI programming is superb. and you have to pay them a good salary and
A few years ago, if you had asked whether we’d make sure they’re incentivised to go forward.
How have you recognised this crisis? be hiring from the public sector, I’d have said The key thing is competing and making sure
Well, what we recognise is that the experienced probably not. We hadn’t thought of that. But they don’t go off into film or mobile or anything
talent pool – the people that have established with the technology we have, it’s pretty exciting like that. But in games now we have such
skills in the industry – are becoming in short that we can reach out and attract people from technological advancements that we’re able to
supply as the entertainment industry grows. different industries into EA. compete with the likes of film. A few years ago,
With the convergence of film and game and people in the film industry perhaps frowned and
mobile, we’re all competing for the same talent. How do game industry salaries, benefits thought they wouldn’t want to work with the
So, how can we continue to grow across the and working conditions compare to the PS2’s memory limitations to make the visual
world and bring in new talent, and not have to expectations of people outside it? effects they create in film. But now we have
compete all the time with salaries or promise One of the perceptions of the games industry people from film volunteering to come across to
extra things in terms of career development? is that its benefits and pay may not be as the game industry because they can see that on
The graduate market is pretty critical, so we’re advanced, and that’s been a communication 360, PS3 or PC they’re able to bring across the
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3. quality of work and effects, and are presented
gamers who could grasp the mysterious with new challenges, like realtime and multi-
interface got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but camera work. That’s all attractive. These are
it was hard to market. pretty exciting times.
At the same time it’s easy to look at But is that good for games in the long
Frequency and see some of the initial DNA run? Do these people have a knowledge
of the later Harmonix games such as of and passion for what games represent?
Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Well, bringing in people from other industries
Yeah, totally. A lot of the interface specifics gives us different perspectives and will take our
and gameplay concepts are inspired by those industry forward. Take film – go back to when it
early titles. Amplitude was an attempt to fix all was on the technological curve, from Jason And
the problems in Frequency and make The Argonauts through to Star Wars, Terminator
something more accessible. We had a 2 and to Toy Story. But today, a lot of people in
spaceship, it shot energy ... film are saying about Transformers: ‘Great film,
but a lot of that has been seen in the past’. In
So the player could identify with an terms of creativity and pushing their talents
avatar as opposed to a total abstraction? they’re seeing games and thinking: ‘Wow, there
Yes, but looking back on it, it was not terribly are a lot of exciting challenges there’. Even
coherent. We were treating the symptoms, just people from public services or consumer goods
band aiding. Sony really pushed on us hard. companies, they’re maturing our industry at a
They said “Look, we’ll fund a sequel because faster pace, and that’s great for gaming.
we think your concept is good, but you’ve got
to put characters in it,” and we thought “But Have Wii and DS changed attitudes of
that compromises our precious vision!” candidates from outside the industry?
Definitely. We’re starting to see more females
How did it compromise your vision to put wanting to work in gaming. We want to reflect
a character in the game? our games with our workforce, which means
We had intentionally made the interface we’re encouraging more ethnic diversity and
abstract. We had an approach where form more females, and that has started to show in
follows function and it’s all got to be our games. With DS and Pogo.com – short,
beautifully integrated. Even in Rock Band sharp, fun games – people who wouldn’t have
there’s something inherently messy about the wanted to work on more hardcore games are
visual design. We render this beautiful scene, realising: ‘Wow, these are great, I’d like to work
and then we slap a huge HUD on top. In on these’. It’s great that casual gaming is taking
Amplitude, we took a small step with those off, new audiences are being attracted and
little avatars who would dance and switch these people are realising that they can make
from drums to guitar, but they weren’t well fun family entertainment for all. The interesting
enough realized to have any emotional beat, thing is that there are a number of countries
and they were off in the corner! we are recruiting in, India for example, which is
a huge area for potential growth for us. But
They’re a postage stamp. some of the parents there think that the games
Yes, and as anyone who has played a rhythm industry is all about shoot ’em ups, and now
action game knows you look at the “now bar” they’re starting to learn that there is family
and six inches above that, and that’s all you entertainment and educational software
can deal with. We were resistant to the whole that’s breaking those misconceptions.
idea of characters because we couldn’t think of
an elegant way to integrate them that did Do you see much potential in looking
justice to the core concept. at user-generated content and web
application creators for new recruits?
So the concept behind Frequency and Yes – in Spore, for example, we’re seeing
Amplitude is that the interface for people making great creatures, and in
playing the game – the HUD, the notes, LittleBigPlanet you can see who could become
and the sight reading stream – was the a level designer. These are key for us as
world you lived in? recruiters looking at who is relevant to EA,
Yes, exactly, the idea was that everything in who could create a difference. Even for
the world was either eye candy or directly Facebook, there are some great applications
relevant to the play surface and that we would and we’re looking at them and trying to
get a lot of power and occasional clarity out of make contact and bring them into EA.
keeping that consistent. But people couldn’t
relate to it. The thing we didn’t realize is that Do you think such people want that? Many
indie types view EA as a kind of monster.
I think the perception of EA in the industry is
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4. AN AUDIENCE WITH…
changing, especially with John Riccitiello How damaging was it to the morale of want to come on to the team. If they’ve worked
looking at the EA model and focusing on people at EA and your ability to recruit? on FIFA for several iterations, they have the
making studios into citystates and becoming a When we were in that initial period, people wider EA to go on to to develop their career.
lot more creative company with new IP. We’re wanted to talk about it, and we were actively
seeing a lot of people in the industry talking engaged with it in recruitment terms. The What do you think of the calibre of
about that. We saw at E3 John Carmack saying author of EA Spouse, Erin Hoffman, came out students from dedicated game courses?
that he would never have considered working in the press and said that the situation is a lot It depends on the area that the students are
with the evil empire, but now he’s partnering more advanced at EA now and said that she was coming from. Our graduates with traditional
with us with Rage. The key thing is with these encouraging some of her friends to work at EA. degrees – maths, science, English literature,
indie developers is that if they want a hit game So I think that says a lot. business studies – not only have more rounded
and the support and marketing budgets we skills but also deeper knowledge and expertise.
have, they should talk with us. So, do you think a lead-level programmer What we’ve found with the majority of the
or artist can comfortably have a family games degrees is that they don’t go as in-depth
Those perceptions have been set in part and kids and a job at EA today? into the subject areas. Graduates in games
by EA Spouse. You worked at EA in I would say yes. Many of our staff members have courses struggle to reach the results we look for
recruitment at that time – how did that families. Yes, there are periods when they’re in our programming tests. The problem then is
affect attitudes to working at EA? busier than in their other work times, but it’s that if you’re asking a graduate to spend three
The whole thing about work-life balance is that ensuring across the whole company they have or four years studying and incurring debts and
it happens over all industries. I recruit from film lots of family time. We’re hitting that balance they can’t get a job because they can’t compete,
at the moment, and today, just as then, they and are always seeking ways of improving it. what do they do? These skills aren’t readily
have crunch periods at the end of projects. I transferable. With the sheer number of game
have friends in financial services who were With Steam, PSN, WiiWare and XBLA courses – over 150 – that’s a lot of students.
working phenomenal hours. Within the game allowing small independent teams to
industry, we’ve been maturing, we have a create and publish games, does that make Has the growth of development in places
greater knowledge of what it takes to make it harder for EA to attract such talent? such as South Korea, Singapore and India
games, how we can understand how to lock No, I think it’s great that the industry is moving affected job markets in Europe and US?
Any game company has to look where the
talent pools are and where the most attractive
locations are. That can be a financial decision –
there’s the debate over Montreal, where 37.5
per cent of creative salaries are paid by the
government after two years and 40 per cent
R&D paid in tax credits. So obviously EA is
building up its operations there. We’re investing
heavily in India, South Korea, Singapore – strong
down game design at an early stage and plan forward and that people have that option. But I talent pools and emerging markets of gamers
effective schedules right up to release date. All think people would rather come in internally to mean it makes sense to be there. The effect on
this provides us with a balance to affect the EA with their ideas so that a bigger audience the UK recruitment market is that a number of
number of hours people are working. can enjoy their games. Global success requires strong candidates want to relocate. Some call it
skills, monetary backing and knowledge of brain drain, but talent is very mobile and they
But, actually, EA Spouse was about long markets. We’re finding an increased number of want to work on the best games, and if they
crunch being built in to project schedules, people willing to partner with us through EA want to work in Montreal or Asia then they will
that it was part of how EA made games. Partners and obviously a lot more people do that. That represents challenges to the
Is that in any way still the case? applying to us to work internally. We can show country they’re relocating from, but that’s the
With EA Spouse we learned a number of new that we can bring out original IP. A few years current position in the marketplace today.
things, and the key for us is that we’ve locked back people could accuse us of sequelitis and
the process to ensure that we have that fully paying it safe with film franchises, but now you Does EA see itself as having a role in
defined process from start to launch. That’s see Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge and Left 4 Dead supporting the industry as a whole?
been pretty critical for us. [Pauses to think] which are getting critical acclaim and hopefully The games industry is one of the most exciting
Casual gaming, in attracting new people into attracting new audiences and showing that of the entertainment industries to work in.
the industry with shorter, sharper games, is we’re not afraid to take risks on original games. We’ve got the most growth potential, the most
causing different development cycles. These challenges – so we’re not promoting that we’re
new employees have families and so they’re On sequelitis, you have long-running series a great company to work for but, particularly in
working with a stronger work-life balance. like FIFA and Madden. Can you convince the likes of India, Korea, China and Singapore,
Looking at games with longer development candidates that these jobs are attractive? there’s not the knowledge among parents or
cycles, we’re now mature enough to define There’s a whole myth about sequels. A sequel some students that they can have great careers
that process and we’re minimising that time has to differentiate itself from its original to in the game industry. So we want to get out the
of crunch. We have this annual survey called persuade people to buy it, otherwise the message that if you’re an engineer, come into
Talk Back, where we poll all staff about their franchise could die, so it’s a big challenge to the industry. If you’re an artist, rather than go
feelings towards EA, and management, and produce successful sequels. No one would doubt into film, come into games. So we see ourselves
our head of HR, Gabrielle Toledano, has shown the strides FIFA is taking year on year. When as benefiting the industry as a whole, not just
that we’re making great strides ahead and talent sees a successful franchise that’s going to EA. We’re all going to benefit from the
have a very positive reputation. have a sustained future, they respect that and growth of our industry.
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