By the 1980s Atari was the biggest
a gaming company in the world Apple had
released two personal computers Silicon
Valley was becoming the center of the
the high-tech universe and watching it all
it was a trip Hawkins pumpkins went to
work for Apple after graduating from
Stanford Business School he's one of
those guys who are probably the smartest
person in every room he's in but he also
sees all the angles and he understands
the technology that's behind behind
individual concepts at Apple Hawkins
began to understand the value of
software designers, he considered them
artists and thought they should be
treated that way
in 1982 Hawkins left Apple to start a
a gaming company in Redwood City
he called it Electronic Arts Hawkins
envisioned EA as an entertainment
the company his engineers were rockstars
promotions for the games included
pictures and BIOS of the people behind
the product worked
everybody wanted to work for ya in
particular brings a huge number of game
developers here are just a huge number I
think at one point I read something like
20% of game developers in the US were
working in the Bay Area and most of them
are working for you under Hawkins EA
released dozens of games war games chess
games puzzles sports games in 1991
Hawkins left as EA CEO to start another
video gaming company before Hawkins left
the EA team came up with John Madden
football the first version in 1988 was
disappointed
game designer Scott or was hired to fix
I think one reason we chiller men
hired me because I had done three
previous computer football games that
were all action arcade oriented before
he joined EA or started a company called
game star with his brother it
specialized in sports games games
brought something different to the
the experience I've been doing magic since I
was a kid and a couple things I learned
from that one was it was very important
to create an atmosphere of feeling for
people with magic where they feel
integrated where they feel part of it
and that certainly influenced me with my
game designs over the years in the
Madden game or looking for ways to get
players are more deeply involved I really
wanted the players to feel like they
were literally on the field and in
control of what was going on if I did
something on offense and you did
something on defense you might stop me
or maybe I score a touchdown but we both
felt like we were in control of that and
if we screw up we know next time we
could have another opportunity to do do
it better or do it different
in 1991 or started meeting John Madden
four times a year during different
stages of the game development there was
one thing Madden insisted on he was a
a big stickler for realism and so it had
to reflect his philosophy of football so
one of the things that I learned when I
did research on them when I was
designing the first one and had to bring
he into the design was his philosophy
of one-on-one confrontations football is
a series of 22 players and 11
confrontations and the result of that
play is how each of those confrontations
resolves itself
Madden's commitment to realism helped
bring the game off the screen into the
real world
gamers started holding drafts
tournaments and even trading players
more importantly NFL coaches and players
started to use the game as a way to
learn strategy and field tactics for the
first time
video game wasn't just again I think
we're all surprised at how much success
it had it it really transcended the
sports of gamer and really reached on
all gamers and I think it still does
following the success of madly EA is
built games for every major sport the
games have even outgrown the skills of
the early designers
I don't play Madden anymore it's
actually, become too complicated for me
I'm an old-school guy now Madden is so
complicated I think there's more
audibles at the line of scrimmage in
Madden then there were plays in the
original Sega Genesis version or left
Electronic Arts in 2000 to get into
mobile games
by then companies like EA and the Tari
had created the first generation of
people who grew up playing video games
and for the first time, gamers were going
to take center stage for our 17-year-old
kid, you know free trip to Boston and
Mike getting paid to just talk about
games and was ya mind-blowing at the
time
