Sony Changes the Game

Job assignments are especially contentious. In the old days, when game teams involved just two or three people, the ideal designer was a brilliant generalist with multiple skills. Today's games require much larger development teams -- and much narrower specialties. This new reality can irk industry veterans. "They're playing a smaller role in a bigger process, and a lot of them don't like it," Flock says. That's why it's critical for everyone to know exactly what's expected of them, what they will and won't be doing.

Third, PlayStation encourages people to work in teams -- and to compete. The studios revel in an organizational tension that would make most companies very uncomfortable: just because everyone is on the same side doesn't mean they always have to get along. At PlayStation, creativity and competition are two sides of the same coin.

Paul Forest, 25, an artist based in San Diego, shares a cubicle with four team members. Forest is working on "Spawn": The Eternal, a game in which an unlucky traveler is doomed to wander hell's many levels -- and battle whomever he meets. "Spawn" is not a sports title. In fact, although this cubicle is less than 200 feet away from where NFL "GameDay" '98 is being produced, it might as well be 200 miles away. Forest barely tolerates his sports-minded neighbors. Chris Whaley, who runs the sports studio, laughs at the conflicts between teams that work on sports games and those that don't: "We call them the 'Ghouls and Goblins' and they call us the 'Dumb Jocks.'"

Recently, in fact, after sharing one giant studio, the sports and nonsports teams were given quarters in separate buildings and now operate almost totally independent of one another. "Teams are competing for internal resources," says Flock, "for marketing dollars, support for their products. And they know how much that matters."

Finally, PlayStation expects success -- but prepares to manage failure. Even the best-designed systems can't guarantee creative perfection. PlayStation pulls the plug on about 15% of the projects it starts. The studios rarely assign those teams another project.

"When you terminate a project," Flock says, "you have to break up the team. Failure usually means that the team dynamics weren't working. Chances are that the dysfunction will continue into the next project."

Interestingly, "hot teams" face a similar fate. Teams that are clicking get subdivided into two or more new teams. "After a killer project," Flock says, "the number two person is ready to become number one on a new project. The second artist is ready to become a lead artist, and so on." The studio often creates new teams before it knows what projects they'll be working on. "The industry is moving so fast now that you almost have to start on a project before you really know exactly what it will be," says Flock. "You want your teams in constant motion."

Tough Customers, Great Developers

What do you do after you've conquered an industry with relentless innovation in hardware, software, and business strategy? Generate more innovation in all three areas. After all, Nintendo and Sega are pursuing aggressive comeback strategies -- and making genuine headway. PlayStation's only option is to keep changing the game.

That's why the mass market isn't the only arena where PlayStation is rethinking how it develops products and relates to customers. It has devised new techniques for reaching hard-core gamers known as "evangelists" -- people recognized by their peers as gurus. Most of us have a friend or neighbor whose advice we seek before buying a car or computer. Gamers are the same way. By targeting these evangelists, says Phil Harrison, the company's ambassador to outside developers, PlayStation is "reaching the top of our consumer pyramid: the experts, the know-it-alls, a group that understands the industry but isn't developing games."

"PlayStation Underground", the company's customer magazine, is one vehicle to reach this constituency. It's available on CD-ROM and online, and it's an evangelist's dream. It features everything from samples of coming games to coded tips for how to win existing games. That's a big deal. Game tips (secret codes that give players access to better weapons or more "lives") are an important part of hard-core gaming culture. PlayStation doesn't just tap into that language; it uses that language to influence behavior. "Gamers are notorious for never reading instruction manuals," says Colin MacLean, 36, manager of online and direct marketing. "So we hide codes in the instructions, and they read every word!"