People have asked me what is so good about working at EA, there are numerous reasons, but on my way to work, I realized one of the best reasons: Scope Management.
The reality of game development is that there is always more work than time to do it in, there are many reasons for that, one of the main ones being that it’s very hard to schedule in the work required to make a game “fun” or “smooth” or “responsive”.
So like every other company I’ve worked at, or heard about, we tend to work extra hours (some times a lot) near milestones to hit all the deliverables we promised for the milestone, but the reality is that sometimes we will reach a milestone that just can’t have all the things we wanted on the date we wanted it.
Every other place I have worked at has solved this problem by pushing the date back. Sometimes by a day, some times by weeks. The problem with this theory is that not only do you “crunch” up to the milestone date, but you keep going in crunch mode until everything is done. Not only is this hard on the body and soul, but it also causes sloppy work.
At EA it’s different, here we always hit the milestones on the date we promised, what we do is scope manage. That is not to say that we just hit the end of the milestone, and everything that was not done we just say “hey, we didn’t do it”. It means that during the milestone we evaluate the ability to meet goals, and scope tasks out (or in, in some cases) to achieve a more realistic goal for the milestone.
What this means for the end of products I am not sure, I haven’t been here long enough. The options are: add milestones(delay the release of the software); add people(which basically means spend more money); or scope out features.
Since I’m working on a new game, there aren’t many features we can scope, unlike other sports titles that have a working base. We (like most sports titles) can’t ship late, because we have to meet up with schedules of sports leagues etc. One thing we could do is crunch till the end of the product, but that would let quality slip, one thing I know we can’t do.
But (and this is another one of those things I like about EA) I’m not very worried, for one major reason, management at this company instills a lot of belief in me. I know they know what they are doing, and they keep us up to date and in the loop, so we keep trusting them, and I know that when it’s time, the game will be on the shelf, and I will be to the quality that I’m getting to realize is required here.
For example, has anyone played NCAA yet? A gamerankings.com average of 95% is pretty good for a sports title!
Posted by Gareth at July 8, 2004 04:50 PM