Visit to EA Germany
A week ago, Darklovis rang me to ask if I’d be interested in going back to Germany to visit Peter Larsen at EA Deutschland. Naturally, I agreed. Darklovis got in touch with Peter, and we put together a list of questions and topics we wanted to discuss with him.
Peter Larsen replied that he could meet us on Thursday at 2 pm (the time we’d suggested) and that he was happy to talk to us about EA Deutschland, Generals™, The Lord of the Rings™, but that he had no information to give us regarding a sequel to Generals™ or ‘Tiberian Twilight’.
On Thursday, I met up with Darklovis at 9 am at Strasbourg station (as usual) and we set off in his car for Cologne. After a two-hour drive, we stopped for a break, during which I showed Darklovis a few clips from the Red Alert 2™ DVD. At 1.30 pm, we arrived in Cologne and, I must admit, we had a bit of trouble finding the EA Deutschland headquarters, but by 2 pm we were in the lift.
No sooner had we entered than Peter Larsen arrived. He asked us to wait for him for two minutes, during which time we took a few photos of the lobby, particularly the trophy cabinet containing two awards for Tiberian Sun™.
We settled into a small break room furnished in the style of an American bar, complete with “EA Games” and “EA Sports” sofas.
Here is a brief summary of the information Peter Larsen gave us, organised by topic:
EA Deutschland is part of EA Europe’s Central Zone (along with Austria, Switzerland and the Eastern European countries). There are around a hundred employees working in Cologne. They are mainly involved in marketing. Game marketing is divided into three parts (one managed by EA Worldwide, such as television or cinema adverts; one by EA Europe; and one locally).
The major projects currently underway (or due for release soon) at EA are: The Lord of the Rings™ (3 titles), James Bond™, FIFA 2004™, The Sims 2™, Medal of Honour™ and Need for Speed Underground™.
EA Deutschland is also working on the anti-cheat programme for Generals (and the ladder kit is being developed in the Netherlands).
EA Los Angeles is set to take on 200 to 300 new employees over the next two years, mainly from the film industry. EALA is set to become EA Games’ film division, focusing in particular on The Lord of the Rings™ and James Bond™ franchises, with the involvement of film crews as well as actors.
Promotion of Command and Conquer™ in France: Peter Larsen provided some information to explain the possible lack of promotion for Command and Conquer™ in France. The top four markets for Command and Conquer™ sales worldwide are the United States, Germany, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Sales in France are significantly lower. In France, sports games are EA’s strong point. Games face very fierce competition between different companies and even within a single company. EA’s sales representatives have every interest in promoting the titles that sell best; shops also order the games that sell best; and journalists write about the games that sell best. EA, unlike other companies, has a policy of never paying for reserved display space for a game (a display stand holding several hundred copies). It is also important to note that, as in the press, all unsold stock is returned to EA France. Finally, the period from September to Christmas is the busiest for game releases, which makes things even more difficult. Furthermore, the absence of a French-language Prima™ Guide (walkthroughs) for the latest Command and Conquer™ games is not a decision taken by EA but solely by Prima™, which alone decides which titles it will publish.
- The Lord of the Rings – The Battle for Middle-earth™: It was Mark Skaggs who came up with the idea of creating an RTS based on The Lord of the Rings licence. They are working with the film team, in particular with the people who created the special effects. As such, the game’s team is partly made up of members of the Generals™ team for the RTS aspects and members of the film crew. The core of the game is complete (pre-alpha stage); they are currently working on the interface and unit controls (with the ability to manage several hundred units at once). The game could be finished by May, but they expect it to be released in September 2004.
As previously announced, the game will feature clips and music from the film. Finally, for your information, the motion capture is being carried out by EA Canada.
Command and Conquer Renegade 2™: Command and Conquer Renegade™ was a success in Germany but did not fare so well in the United States or the United Kingdom. Peter explains this difference by the fact that in Germany, players saw the game primarily as a Command and Conquer™ title, whereas in the US everyone was mainly expecting a very good FPS. In his view, the release should have been delayed by a few more months. He was then asked why the game hadn’t been developed by a team specialising in FPS games.
He told us that it would have been a good idea for the Medal of Honour™ team to make a C&C™ FPS, and vice versa. But that would surely never happen because all the teams have too much work on their hands to take on that sort of project. Command and Conquer Renegade 2™ was cancelled because EA’s management didn’t want a game that wouldn’t rank higher than fifth in the FPS charts.
Command and Conquer Generals™: The game required a great deal of work due to the design of the engine. The reason the single-player campaign was so short (according to Peter Larsen) was down to several factors: Europeans and Americans do not share the same vision of what a game should be. Europeans expect a substantial storyline, whilst Americans focus primarily on the engine. Secondly, the game was designed with multiplayer in mind. Finally, the development team created the World Builder so that fans could create their own campaigns.
As for the absence of cutscenes in Generals™, this is because Mark Skaggs found Westwood’s cutscenes amusing, but also felt they were B-movie style and should therefore be removed.
A second expansion pack for Generals is indeed in the pipeline, but there is no information as yet on its title or content.
The Generäle™ affair: Following its release last February, Generals™ was placed on the Index (a list of books, games and films strongly discouraged) in Germany. Pending its legal proceedings against the German government, EA has released a censored version of the game, Generäle™. Peter told us that this game is very similar to the original: a few place names have been changed, the voices have been altered, the GLA versus UN mission has been removed, and a single unit has been replaced. The German fan community has released a Patch that restores 99 per cent of the original game’s data. The ‘Die Stunde Null™’ expansion pack contains no changes compared to the US version. For Peter, this “censorship” is primarily a political act, as studies carried out by EA show that Command & Conquer™ players tend to opt for civilian rather than military service, and that the majority of the Command & Conquer™ community in Germany was opposed to the Iraq War. To mark the occasion, EA has released a ‘Verteidiger des Friedens’ (Defender of Peace) T-shirt.
The future of Command and Conquer™: Peter Larsen has confirmed to us that the Command and Conquer™ licence is very important to EA. There will certainly be many more Command and Conquer games in the future, and according to him, their French localisation will never be called into question (it is “impossible” to sell a game in a foreign language in a French-speaking country). He told us that only EA Los Angeles could release a Command and Conquer™ game, but that there was more than one team working on it. Another team is therefore working on a project set in the Tiberium Universe, though not necessarily an RTS and, it seems, not Twilight (he confirmed that this game had been discussed at one point but is not currently in the pipeline). This project does not yet have an official name.
When we subsequently mentioned the lack of cutscenes in Generals™, he asked us whether we preferred the quality of Westwood’s cutscenes to that of The Lord of the Rings. We naturally replied, “The Lord of the Rings”. He then explained that EA Los Angeles’ ambition was to work with Hollywood film crews rather than produce films themselves. We then told him that, as Command and Conquer™ isn’t a film, it couldn’t be compared to the James Bond™ or Lord of the Rings™ franchises. He replied with a smile and a remark along the lines of: “Just wait and see over the next two years”. We can therefore look forward to either a film set in the Tiberium Universe or some top-quality video sequences.
In conclusion, we should expect a Tiberium game – not Tiberium Twilight, Generals 2 or Red Alert 3 – for the time being.
Command and Conquer™ collectables and fansites: EA has no plans to sell collectables (“EA isn’t a clothing company”). Collectables are reserved for fansites and events. No company is authorised to sell Command and Conquer™ collectables. However, EA tolerates the production and distribution (or sale) of collector’s items by fan sites, as they recognise that running a website incurs costs. But you shouldn’t expect to receive official authorisation from them either.
To thank us for coming from so far away, Peter Larsen went to fetch a few items for us from a neighbouring office: 1 Generals T-shirt bearing the slogan ‘Verteiger des Friedens’ (Defender of Peace), 3 Generals mouse mats and the US version of the Generals game for the two of us. We gave him a bottle of Alsace wine as a thank-you. We then left, agreeing to meet up again soon online and in Cologne.
