Operation Sports: Cam, first just give us a little background about your time in the video game industry, and just talk a bit about these EA football franchises.

Cam Weber: I’m a 14 year games industry veteran, having recently worked at EA Canada before moving down to Tiburon this spring. In my first cycle at EAC, I worked within the FIFA franchise on the development of FIFA 10. My time working within the FIFA group was a great learning experience for me. It taught me the value of investing heavily in a central core gameplay team, and the value in always working on advance features and technology to set the franchise up to be a leader in terms of innovation in the future.

After that, I moved over to become the Executive Producer on our SSX and Fight Night franchises, and worked with the Fight Night team over an 18 month period to develop Fight Night Champion. I’m proud of what we accomplished with that product because we were able to make strong strides ahead with our core gameplay while also building an immersive, story-driven experience with our Champion mode. Coming off of that project this past February, I moved down to Orlando to our Tiburon studio to take on the new role of GM of Football for EA Sports.

On a more personal note, I am a former college football player. I played my college career at Simon Fraser University (now in the NCAA Div.II GNAC Conference) and was lucky enough to be able to serve as quarterback and captain of the team back in my glory days. I also spent a year on staff as the program’s quarterbacks coach in 1997. I have a deep love for the sport of football, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work in a job that combines my passion for football with my experience and passion for game development.

Coming in to a new role as GM of Football, I first spent a bunch of time doing research on where we stand with our current football franchises: Madden NFL and NCAA Football. As a football fan and sports gamer, I’ve obviously spent a ton of time playing these titles over the years, and I’ve spent hours and hours reading community feedback, past reviews and studying the forums to understand what our core consumers are asking for.

Ultimately, there are some key recurring themes that come through in the feedback:

• First and foremost, we need to deliver an amazing simulation football gameplay experience on both of our franchises. In other words, our fans want to see fluid, realistic player movement and deep football AI and behaviors on the field. This includes what players are doing between the whistles in the middle of a play, and how they behave in our pre- and post-play moments as well.

• Another key component is authenticity. Whether it is delivering the unique sights and sounds, traditions and pageantry across the schools in college football, or the NFL experience that we’ve all come to know and love on Sundays. Our consumers count on us to pay attention to the details.

• On top of that, it is critical that we deliver compelling depth modes. Whether it is providing a rich and deep Franchise/Dynasty mode or Superstar/Road to Glory mode, we need to continue to continuously invest in making these modes as deep and as realistic as possible.

• In addition to those core components, we need to deliver compelling ways for our consumers to compete with one another in the online space. The foundation of our online sports game experience is social competition -- we need to continue to innovate in how we allow our consumers to compete against friends and other opponents, customize their game experience and to keep our product updated with content throughout the year.

As the details on Madden NFL 12 and NCAA Football 12 continue to be revealed, you will see that the teams have worked hard to improve our games significantly in all of the above areas this year. Here are just a few of the additions that you will see: In terms of gameplay, we have made huge improvements to our defensive AI, especially in our pass coverage. You’ll also see some major improvements in our collision system, and now our blocks and tackles will be driven at the point of impact where you control the player right to the point of collision and the momentum of the players involved in the collision, along with additional secondary players joining in will alter the result. On top of that is a new layer of depth in our player behaviors in terms of how they evolve throughout the course of a game

In terms of authenticity, you will also see a revamped presentation in both of our games, with new customized details, from the entrances and traditions of individual teams and stadiums, to the fidelity of our cameras, overlays and commentary bringing us closer to the broadcast look and feel. You will definitely see a huge difference between our games in this area as we dial in on the authentic sights and sounds of both the college football and NFL experiences respectively.

We’ve focused heavily on our depth modes as well -- with numerous additions and improvements to our Franchise, Superstar, Dynasty and Road to Glory modes. Also, we continue to deepen our online experience across both franchises with unique new modes and functionality for our consumers to compete with friends and other members of our communities.

OS: Now, you spoke about a three-year plan when it comes to Madden. Some folks are a little wary about talks of three-year investments because, while some have been successful (MVP Baseball), others have not led to such fruitful results. Could you perhaps expand a bit on what a three-year plan means for Madden? Is it meant as a way to overhaul the franchise or more as a way to change how the game is developed and given to consumers -- you had previously mentioned FIFA as a sort of game you wanted Madden to be more like in terms of how it is created and distributed on a yearly basis.

Weber: To answer your question about the “3 Year Plan,” what I am talking about is working off of a rolling, long-term vision. And as GM, I am specifically talking about the vision for the overall football business, which includes our title planning, levels of investment, our operational and technology plans, as well as making sure that there is a solid creative vision in place for each of our franchises.

The key here is that as we build components and features each year, they are fundamental improvements to our games that build on top of a solid, growing core foundation -- so that we don’t end up building features that are seen as one-year gimmicks that get tossed out the following year. This is an area where we have received some criticism in the past, especially on our Madden franchise, and I’m happy to say that this year the team has had a dedicated focus on delivering features and improvements to the core elements of the game that will build on that foundation. This is a proven approach that has also been used to deliver strong results on many of our other franchises, including FIFA, NHL, and recently on our NCAA Football franchise.

Another key factor in the development of our annual sports franchises is that we compete with other games in the industry that are often in development over much longer cycles, in many cases spanning 2-3 years. If we build our games one year at a time, it becomes very difficult to deliver fundamental innovation in our technology because many of the core innovations take multiple years to develop before they are ready to be rolled into our games. What we have done within our football group is we have an Advance Team that is dedicated to working on the technology and feature innovations of the future. This is an additional investment that does not take away from our ability to deliver our games this year.

Operation Sports: To provide a bit more context to the last question, sometimes these plans start with good intentions, but then they become a bit more reactionary on a year-to-year basis and end up not quite hitting on the scope of what some might expect out of a three-year vision. Is everything already mapped out on a year-to-year basis in terms of what you folks want to accomplish, or will much of what happens in years two and three depend upon what consumers are reacting to in year one?

Weber: As I explained above, the key is that these long-term plans are “rolling.” In other words, this is not a completely linear process where we set plans in stone across the board and just build with blinders on towards that vision. The key is that we continue to listen to what our consumers are saying, monitor what our consumers are doing in our games and evolve our core gameplay to account for the evolving trends in the NFL and college football world over time.

But at the same time, there are fundamental elements and areas within our technology that we are investing in that will sometimes span over multiple years, and the key is to give our advance teams the time and space to deliver those fundamental innovations without always changing directions or being completely reactive. So it is an organic process -- it is not a three year set plan that gets reset completely every three years -- what I am talking about is the method of always knowing what you are building this year and how it fits within the high-level plans for the future. This method gives us the ability to go from making good games to being an industry leader in driving the sports gaming experiences of the future.

OS: Some developers recently departed from the Madden team to pursue other ventures. While I'm not asking about particular developers in particular, can you just speak about how, if at all, this has affected the development of Madden 2012?

Weber: As many of you have heard, Ian Cummings, the former creative director of Madden, has left Tiburon to pursue another opportunity. On top of that, we have lost one engineer from our core football team as well. So as of right now, the fact is that we have lost two people recently to another studio in Orlando. To be clear, losing someone of the caliber of Ian Cummings is always a challenge. He is a talented guy, and we thank him for the years of effort he put into the Madden franchise. However, this is the nature of our industry. Having come from the highly competitive development industry in Vancouver where there are numerous studios competing for talent, I’ve come to expect this type of turnover and it is quite normal and something that we are well equipped to deal with.

We have a ton of talent within our football group, and with the depth we have, for every Ian Cummings, there are a number of up and coming talented designers that are chomping at the bit to get an opportunity to take a leadership position. Our games are built by strong teams with leadership across all of our game areas. So ultimately, while we are disappointed to see Ian and our other engineer leave our team, we have other talented developers who have taken over their work, and we continue to charge ahead. For Madden NFL 12 specifically, we are in our Alpha period right now, which means our game is feature complete and we are in the final phase of bug fixing and tuning, and we are on track to deliver a strong, fully featured Madden title this year that will be the best one we’ve delivered in years.

OS: When it comes to doubling the size of the development team, what does this increase allow you guys to do that might not have been possible before? Also, it seems like a focus overall for EA Sports is to allow developers to work in these smaller think-tank groups to stay ahead of the game, so is this part of the reason the team is growing?

Weber: To give some context, let me explain a bit about how our development group is structured. We have two dedicated project teams for our NCAA Football (led by Executive Producer, Roy Harvey) and Madden NFL (led by Executive Producer, Phil Frazier) franchises that work on those particular products in terms of their feature sets, visuals, presentation, modes and online functionality. These teams are dedicated and passionate fans of college and pro football and are totally focused on delivering the unique experiences that come from each franchise. On top of that, we have a central team that works on our core football engine upon which all of our games are built. This includes our core gameplay team and our advance team that work on fundamental improvements to our technology and on core long-term innovation features as I outlined above.

When I referenced doubling the size of the team, what I specifically said is that we are “doubling the size of our core football team.” It is this core football gameplay and engine group that I am talking about. This increased investment allows us to drive fundamental improvements and innovations to our core game and deliver depth in our football simulation that will benefit all of our titles across the group, not just on this year’s products but in our future products as well.

OS: You spoke about a heavy investment in core gameplay being a major focus moving forward, can you expand on what parts of the game that might change the most moving ahead?

Weber: We believe that the core gameplay experience is the most important area of our game, and it needs to be the area that receives our biggest investment -- not just this year but into the future as well.

The sport of football is so complex in that there are so many different roles and positions on each side of the ball and on special teams. In order to run a successful play, you often need everyone to fulfill their unique job on the field. There are so many individual battles that take place on every play, and so many factors that influence each player’s performance throughout the course of a game. Our goal is to go deeper and deeper into the intelligence and behaviors of our players on both sides of the ball and on special teams, to continue to keep up with the trends in the ways that pro and college football teams are playing, and to combine fluid and authentic movements with tight controls to provide the ultimate football gameplay experience.