WiiNintendo

EA’s execs take us through the philosophy behind the publisher’s Wii sports titles in this exclusive interview.

June 26, 2008 – In the months to come, publishing giant Electronic Arts will be launching the first of many new sports games designed for the Wii system and its audience. NCAA. Madden. Tiger. FIFA. And NBA. Most of the major sports are covered. But this year, these franchises will look and play differently on Wii — to the point, in fact, where the publisher has felt it appropriate to house its sports efforts under a new wing: All-Play. It’s a term that accurately describes optional simplified control schemes available to sports videogame newcomers, but it also defines the philosophy behind EA’s Wii approach. Last week, we sat down with Steve Chiang, SVp and Group GM of EA Sports and Dave McCarthy, VP, executive producer, EA Sports, to chat about Wii and All-Play.

IGN: Why create the All-Play Brand?

Dave McCarthy, VP, Executive Producer: We discovered soon after launch of out original EA Sports titles on the Wii that we needed to take an approach that was really exclusive to that platform. The reason we needed to do that is that it’s a different type of audience, it’s a different type of play experience for people. It’s a more social experience, one that involves people of a lot of different difficulty levels. And unless we clearly communicated to folks that we were taking a much different strategy with it, because it is much different; it plays different in the sense that the control schemes are a hell of a lot different than on the 360 and PS3. The game modes are different, it looks different visually, it’s even packaged differently. Unless we fully committed to that, we didn’t think we’d get across the point that this is exclusive content that’s developed with a much different consumer in mind. And we’ve spent probably the past 18 months learning a lot about how a sports gamer on the Wii is a lot different than a sports gamers on the 360 or PS3 and that’s why you see All-Play specifically called out for us on the platform.

IGN: There’s this perception, at least among the hardcore crowd, that the Wii version of the games will have less features. What do you think that says about companies making Wii games?

Dave: What we’ve learned over the past year is that the “hardcore madden fan” does not have a built in aversion to seeing Madden on the Wii. They just want us to do something different on the Wii. So if they want an uber realistic authentic experience on the Xbox 360 or PS3, they still want us to stay true to sport on the Wii, but they don’t mind us having a little fun with it if ii adds to their social setting. And they certainly appreciate innovations in gameplay that allows them to play the franchise in an entirely different way. So I think Madden is a perfect example to talk about with a feature like Call Your Shots, where, for the first time ever, you’ve got the chance to easily, on the fly, point and click at your player at the line of scrimmage, draw their routes on the field, see them run those exact routes, and pass the ball to them. That’s an amazing innovation for that franchise where we’ve been basically based on pre-baked playbooks up to this point. So for the hardcore consumer, not only are they getting some of those fun social modes that they can start to share with others who might not play with them on the 360 or PS3, but they’re also getting entirely different ways to play the franchise they know and love that are still extremely relevant to the way they look at the sport.

IGN: We got the feeling that in the beginning of the Wii’s lifecycle, a lot of Wii games were very obviously PS2 ports that were slightly enhanced. Do you feel like you’ve gotten past that in the Wii?

Dave: It’s really accurate to say that the content that you’re starting to see in Tiger, Madden, NCAA, FIFA, are a lot of original content. Those are game modes you can only find on that platform, there are control schemes you can only find on that platform, and I think you’d be hard pressed to argue the presentation is indicative of anything you’d find on another platform. Madden or NCAA are great examples where play calling, we can provide multiple levels of interface for the user there. If I want everything picked for me at the touch of a button I can do that. If I want a mid-level play menu I can do that, or if I want the full in-depth stuff I can do that. I stay in the huddle, I don’t have to go to a pause menu to do that. It’s snappy. We talked a lot about having arcade style gameplay that is still true to the sport. All the moves are there, the rules are there. We may turn some off if it enhances the social play experience. There are cues from arcade gameplay that make for a really different experience than on the 360 or PS3. It’s snappy. To do a drive down the field is a hell of a lot faster on the Wii than it is on the 360 or PS3.

IGN: Seems like sports games are a tough sell on Nintendo’s consoles. You guys found this to be different on the Wii, so how have you guys been working for that?

Steve Chiang, SVP, Group GM EA Sports: I think that’s part of the reason we’re moving towards this All-Play concept and designing it exclusively for the Wii. On the Gamecube we saw a lower attach rate. PObvious first party content sold very well on the Gamecube and Wii. Our idea with All-Play is to design exclusively for the Wii, creating the custom content that Dave was talking about, making it more fun to play and overall tailoring the experience for the Wii. When we look at the Wii there’s two distinct audience: the 12-17 year olds and the Dads. So games like Tiger have sold great and have had great appeal because it’s parents who play a round of golf when their kids go to bed.

Dave: I think if you compare the Gamecube sports experience to the Wii sports experience there are two very important things to know that are different and makes sports amore attractive feature on the Wii. The first is obvious, it’s that 1:1 feeling of control. So when you’re playing Tiger and you pull the remote back, you get that 1:1 feeling on your swing. Or throwing the football on Madden or shooting the ball in NBA. So you get that feeling of being immersed in the sport. And I don’t think that social dynamic existed as much back then as it does now on the Wii. And with sports, with so much to do around team play or competitive play, that’s something we didn’t have back then that makes sports much more attractive on the platform for us.

Steve: On Gamecube our games were exact, minus the online play, and that didn’t work. So I think we’ve seen the process where we do exact versions. And it all varies by reviewers. Some reviewers are mad because one feature on the 360 or PS3 they wanted isn’t on the Wii, but the way we’re looking at it is we want to build a different experience and we’re building great games that stand on their own right. If you compare it to every version in the past 20 years, these games are built to stand on their own.

IGN: Are you guys seeing fairly strong sales on the Wii for the sports games?

Steve: I think games like Madden and Tiger have sold very well. We expect to do better and better the more exclusive content we build. Tiger has been phenomenal because of that 1:1 control and it feels like you’re playing golf.

IGN: I’ve always thought of EA Canada as kind of the Wii sports house. But Tiburon’s handling Tiger, so what’s the reason behind that?

Dave: I think, in the early days, we did a lot of the initial development for the sports franchises, but quickly what we’ve discovered is going back to the viability of the Wii as a sports platform is that everyone wants a piece of the action. So you’ve got extremely talented folks in both studios who know these sports inside and out, who have a huge passion for them and want to get their hands on what will become the lead platform for some of our games. So we had the advantage of being able to get a lot of concentrated learning early on in one location. And once we figured out a lot of the basics, we shared that with a broader population within the two studios. I think that you’re going to see more creativity, more variety, you’re going to see more specialization in the individual sports that will probably push each game forward by putting the collective strengths of all those EA Sports design teams in Florida and Vacouver to the Wii products themselves.

Steve: I think it’s the sheer volume of the EA Sports titles. It’s really hard to think of one studio holding all the titles.

IGN: Do you feel like you’re sacrificing any depth or gameplay modes to have the All-Play brand?

Dave: That’s a slippery term, right? I think depth on the 360 or PS3 means something different than depth on the Wii. There’s content that’s unique to both platforms and if that’s what creates your depth, you can call that depth on either side. The fact of the matter is, with Madden you’ve got the Dynasty modes, you’ve got the online play, you’ve got the core 11 on 11 experience. You’ve got all the pieces you expect from the franchise, but then you got all these other cool extras. You got Call Your Shots gameplay on the Wii, 5 on 5 gameplay, all these little gameplay experiences, which, in my mind, makes the game just as deep, if not a little deeper in its own way on the Wii.

Steve: It just kind of comes down to what the customers are asking for on the Wii. So the audience on Wii, the experience tends to be shorter, faster, so that’s why there have been specific design decisions on NCAA and Madden to make that gameplay experience faster. It’s different. The thing with a really super deep feature on Madden for the 360 or PS3 may not be what a Wii player wants. So with adults you have time issues. They want to get in and play 9 holes, they don’t have time to play the FedEx Cup.

IGN: Do you guys see a time when you might debut a new sports franchise for the Wii?

Dave: A definitive yes, we will continue to do so.

David Tinson, EA Public Relations: The one thing you’ve heard Peter Moore talk about is our interest in the fitness space. That’s one thing we can’t make specific announcements about now, but we can definitely confirm that we’re interested in the fitness space and feel we have a place to be in the fitness space. So absolutely, there are a couple of things that will debut and be specific to the Wii in the very near future.

IGN: How else are you planning to separate EA Sports titles on the Wii?

Dave: Each year we feel we’re scratching the surface when we go in a new direction with a platform. This year when we started we didn’t imagine we’d have the depth with different game modes and control schemes, different presentation all that stuff. So I look forward to next year’s version for the Wii. I don’t think we’ve tapped it out, I think there are different things we can exploit. I think we’ll do it with the principle of social play and being a more approachable EA Sports experience in mind. But we can innovate a lot in that space alone. I think the other interesting thing we’re toying with too is whether there is a fitness angle to everything we do in EA Sports as well, and I think that’s another interesting way to look at sports games moving forward. But lots of opportunities there, just in the world of sports that we can tap into.

IGN: I love the Call Your Shot feature in Madden. Are you guys planning on expanding that in the future, maybe for defense?

Dave: You see the potential. First time out of the gates we want to keep things straightforward and simple, which I feel it really is. It’s obvious who your receivers are, it’s obvious how to point and click and do the routes, and you can see the potential for that to go into other areas. And there are other interesting experimentation going into other franchises with that. The point and passing mechanics they’re doing in NBA Live or FIFA right now are really interesting things to play with more and more. We never get to do absolutely everything we want to do in a given year so we’ve always got ideas stocked up when it comes to innovating with controls.

IGN: Do you feel you can really tap the casual gamer with these games? The little girls and the grandmas coming in to play these games with the guys?

Steve: We’ve seen it, Nintendo has done it with Wii Sports. We’ve seen little girls, moms, I don’t know about grandmas, but I’ve seen a wide spectrum of people playing golf, bowling, baseball and tennis. So we absolutely believe it and I think that’s something special abut the Wii. If we design the right experiences, we can be very social and the whole family can play the game. I think we have that in some of our games this year. If you look at Tiger it’s very simple, it’s always been one of the more simple, approachable EA titles and this year it gets even simpler.

Dave: That’s the spirit of the All-Play name, that’s the spirit of the All-Play packaging, that everyone is invited to play. And something we haven’t talked about is that I think the control system we’ve done this year is more conducive to bringing in Mom, daughter, younger kid, whoever. Last year what we did was offer a very basic Wii Remote only entry and we did all the movement or you could use the regular controls. I think we’ve done a much better job of providing multiple entry points into it. If you want to play with the nunchuck you can, but we can give you a lot of assists along the way and then gradually pull the training wheels off. Because I think with Family Play last year honestly is that you tried it, and you got it, but you weren’t hooked or ramped up enough to get to that full play experience. And this year with the All-Play experience I really think we’ve nailed that and I think that’s going to pull people in more than the visuals or anything else were doing is that that alone is going to pull people into the sports games that looked a little intimidating to them in the past.

IGN: How serious are you guys about brining quality sports titles to the Wii?

Dave: From my perspective, I think the seriousness is in that we’re willing to take some significant risks with the way we treat our games. We want to stay true to the sport because that’s what EA Sports is about. We want to offer that depth and richness of experience, but I think we’re showing a lot of courage with our products to toss aside some of the traditional ways of doing things, offer some additional content, and above all else, by clearly not porting games to this device an investing heavily in them we’re showing people we’re here and we’re prepared to go big on this platform.

Steve: I totally agree. The commitment you’re going to see is some of our games are going to lead on the Wii, you’re going to see exclusives on the Wii in the sports arena. You’re going to see a commitment with all of our titles to really take that to where they’ve been to a higher level. You’ll see that this year in everything we do.

[via IGN]

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