Reinforcements
A number of weeks ago I had lunch with Erin Turner at the Sofitel hotel near the EA campus. Come to think of it, it was labor day or something. And of course, being a producer and all, Erin was in the office that day. :) Shes leading the charge on the next Bond game after all, and she was wrapping pre-beta. I was plunking away on the piano when she walked up and we went to grab lunch nearby.
So, We Get To Chatting
Erin started off in film before co-founding and serving as CEO of Gigabeat at the ripe old age of 24. After returning to film for a short while, she decided to pitch an EA producer on an idea and ended up landing a gig as associate producer with the Bond franchise.
She told me about her adventures in the industry and we got to talking about how the game industry isnt exactly bursting with networking opportunities, though it’s very important to know the right people in order to get stuff done. We started brainstorming a bit about what we could do to get some of the people in NoCal area together. We came up with some good ideas; I suspect well be picking up that conversation thread again.
And She Introduces Me To Jordan
Erin offered to put in a good word where she could in EA and told me to ping her when I got a lead. When I heard about EAP I sent her a quick email and a few days later I heard from Jordan Maynard who offered to help! I guess he spoke with Erin, checked out my website and thought it was cool. He said the Penny Arcade link was what pushed me over into the “hes a real gamer” zone. I thought I owed the PA guys a couple beers before. :)
Jordans got one of the sweetest roles I’ve heard of yet. Hes a technical designer–a newer role for EA and much of the industry I suspect. He takes game engines and figures out how to design fun games that play to the engines strengths. The upshot of that is that fewer resources are needed to battle the technology and more are available for other aspects of making a good game and bring it to market. Jordan worked on Alice too (as did RJ)…he did a bunch of the scripting on the cut scenes. Like when the Jabberwocky smacks Alice. :)
Hes offered to help out and he knows the guys on the EAP team. He comes from a line of entrepreneurs and gamers too, his dad, David Maynard cofounded EA (which, basically makes him a legend). Its incredibly cool of him to offer to help me out. Its just awesome to keep meeting these great people at EA.
Updated on October 5th, 2013
Some of the links were broken. I replaced them with working links to pages with the same or similar content as before.