Trainers Talk Tech

Second day session overview. Great morning!

8:15 :: Introduction of Rich and his awesome background!

8:20 :: Richard (Rich) takes the stage - game designer/Chief Creative Director for EA - was the designer for the first Madden Football game, Yeager's flight Sim and Golf - 25 years at EA. Born up in MN, moved to Vegas.

8:22 :: "What did I learn while I live in Vegas? People Lie..." People Lie...but their actions don't

8:22 :: People Lie, but they don't mean to

8:25 :: Learning through Games - showed Cartels & Cutthroat$ - an economic sim game built on a wall street model. At an EA retreat, had a Cartels & Cutthroats tournament. About 11 out of 150 people participated! LOL.

8:25 :: EA University :: Knowledge Changes Everything - Xcelerator program - investment in the key folks at the firm - primarily Creative Directors. Has 40 products and about 25 Directors - Working on leadership and teamwork

8:30 :: Plugged Lego Mindstorms - YES - Lego RULE!!! Integrated into the Xcelerator program and his other classes - An educational toy that allows you to create a working, programmable robot with Lego.

8:30 :: Used in Leadership and Team Training - simulates what its like to launch products on new platforms, simulates market cycles, create teams of Production, Design and Engineering professionals (playing out of position - each of them plays a different role than their "real job"

8:31 :: Exercise Gameplay - each team attends a faux "Developer's Conference" to learn the "new" tech, then they get access to "The Market". "The Market" is a separatecontains Play Money and plexi-glass squares and during the market cycle, the robot tires to acquire revenue by putting a wheel on a moneyed square.

8:33 :: Complications - The Market you see, isn't always what you get - more than one team can win a square - the wheels don't have to stay on (encourages creativity)

8:35 :: The purpose of the exercise is to CREATE CHANGE - winners have an appropriate combination of risk and a high iteration cycle :: The anticipate market changes

8:36 :: Some other games :: The Gong Show (public speaking and rapid production techniques), The Pieces Game (Game design iteration techniques and team dynamics), The Roaring Silence (sound design for emotion, quick repair techniques)

8:37 :: "Audio is 51% of the entertainment experience" - George Lucas

8:38 :: How we Used to Make Games - a single designer on a game - "Drove them crazy because they never finished anything!"

8:38 :: Now, they add a few more people to the mix - the problem is that the numbers of people on a game design have increased and the products are more complicated. Godfather had 300 people on the project! They have had to change they way they worked - from solo to team

8:42 :: Was failing because they are guessing about what people are telling them. Aircraft carrier story - "We thought people wanted to fly the planes off the carrier...others thought they wanted to drive the ships...others wanted to do fleet and resource management. Resource groups told them ALL THREE!" The problem is that PEOPLE LIE! (We had to shout this out...some of us more enthusiastic than others... LOL)

8:44 :: Every online game played in John Madden "phones home" sends a report back to EA so they can read the reports. Actions Don't Lie!

8:45 :: Played a number of games calibrate some problems - comparing performance verbally - People Lie, their Actions Don't

8:46 :: Real World Problem - Madded 10 had a Kicking Problem - Telemetry messed up - Video testing verified it

8:47 :: Team worked on the DATA, rather than what people said was wrong.

8:48 :: Stop Guessing, Start SCORING the Change - Google Semantic Analysis relies of user data and Amazon's uses your ACTIONS: Suggested Products. Data mining based on choices and correlating that to other customers, services and products.

8:50 :: Stop guessing and start measuring - Identify your Markers of Progress, Turn those into Scorecards all can see, Pay attention to the results, Iterate for success, Celebrate metrics, Pursue new Markers and Correlations for insight they provide

8:52 :: Nice Telemetry Based Education example - applies the measuring steps to an educational example

8:55 :: All that is nice, but how does it help me get paid? Metrics are important

8:56 :: Benefit of programs - Know the difference between clients and customers, Avoid different scoreboards for different audience, Measured progress metrics ensure all parties:: be sure development outcomes = business outcomes

8:57 :: People Lie, their actions don't - don't trust, don't guess, Find metrics to measure, Communicate progress and value through scoreboards of those metrics

8:58 :: Questions

8:58 :: Where is gaming going and how does it integrate into the rest of the world? We spend lots of times building games for machines that are not in educational environments. PS3, XBOX and Wii are not in the business world. Why not? Building for these platforms, not business platforms. Web based games may be the solution for gaming in the workplace.

9:00 :: People complain about gaming isolating them from others. How do you see that changing? People are playing with other humans online. The online environment means people are playing games against each other. The most interesting interactions are between the humans playing the game. Human beings beat the "crap" out of any code.

9:02 :: You face the challenge of leading creative people. Every organization drives creativity. Do you try to manage your "leadership brand" using games and NOT stifle the creativity? In EA's case, every four years the company has radically changed. From 5 1/2" disks, to CDs, to game platforms. Changed the "game" that is the company. Done lots of work communicating the "rules" of the new game, and have "learning camps". Change is then put into class. Reinventing all the time.

9:04 :: What tools can you use to create corporate training? What tools? There are lots of tools but they take forever to learn. Game designers are working on making the products more accessible from the back end. Sim builders and stuff...game design tools..sometimes you just need to be a program...then there is Flash which takes about a year to master.

9:05 :: Situations and case based learning using Flash. What measurement techniques can we test and implement in Flash? Have tools to generate output, but choosing the metrics are the hard part. Create your variables, export them and use things like Google Analytics to examine the data. The hard part is exporting the data.

9:06 :: Retention is a problem. Especially with creative minds. What do you do to manage retention? What motivates people. Tie retention to motivation. (I think he misunderstood retention (keeping people employed) from retention (keeping content in their minds)

9:10 :: If I purchased Madden 10 for my husband for Christmas and his field goals never go in, how can I make him better at kicking goals? YouTube videos

9:12 :: We've changed our idea of what our "platform" is. Its not a system where you can dedicate many hours to it, its now a change to the mindset of "touching" the gamer where they access. Take your game from the web, take it to the iPhone, finish it up on the console when you get home. Take the game out of the living room to the mobile device. Take the game experience with you.

9:13 :: Applause! Good session.