Playing to Win

Jackson and his team of illustrators make digital sketches of each moment (they call them "story beats") and string them together in an "animatic" (something that resembles a flip book of black-and-white action scenes that can be 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 single chapter in the story. Jackson also charts the visual progression of action, tone, shape, and intensity to make sure that each element builds to a climactic point, like the Dow on an excellent day. "You get a better story this way," he says.

In just four weeks' time, the MoH team and EA executives have a clear idea of a game's tone, mood, and objective. "I was looking for a better way to communicate to senior management what we're doing," says Giolito. "Now they can see how the game unfolds moment by moment. It's like a play or a movie."

Actually, in the case of MoH, it's more like a miniseries. Next year's installment involves dramatic rescues, unexpected reunions, surprise attacks, and any number of plot twists. World War II lasted six years, but EA is hoping that MoH will last a lot longer. Giolito, for one, isn't worried about running out of ideas. He picks up a letter of citation about a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. After the soldier's unit was attacked, he was shot at and nearly killed by a grenade, yet he still managed to go after a machine gunner and later clear an airfield so that the wounded could be airlifted off the battlefield.

Giolito shakes his head, amazed. It doesn't matter that this soldier fought in Vietnam. Heroism is heroism. "Real 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 yet to win a game in Madden NFL 2003. Learn more about Electronic Arts on the Web (www.ea.com).

Sidebar: THE DISCIPLINE OF CREATIVITY

At Electronic Arts, creativity is built on a foundation of management discipline. EA even takes a disciplined approach to the challenge of developing creative leaders. A dozen or so producers and designers at each studio meet throughout the year for a series of workshops. A dancer came in to talk about how movement can be used to express physical and emotional states. A film expert talked about the use of music in silent films to enhance the action. The idea behind the program is simple yet effective, says Andy Billings, vice president of human resources and organizational development: Expose creative 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 motion-picture industry in its infancy, when it had been around for only 25 years, he told the group. "That's where you are now," said Jenkins. "Video games will be the most important American art form for the 21st century."

The challenge 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 put in a game that will endure?" he asked.

Over two days at the Vancouver studio, EA's 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 player's mind even when the console is switched off.

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

Between 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.