EA
What I knew before
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EA is a video game developer who has produced countless hit games, including the Madden series and The Sims
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“EA Sports” completes with “2K” sports as the two biggest sports developers in the industry
Introduction and Expectations
I expected the EA headquarters to look like the dream of a 15 year old boy, filled with statues, posters, and memorabilia. I was very excited for this visit because not only does EA produce games that I have been playing all my life, but also because I love learning about the behind the scenes aspects of companies that I interact with as a consumer but do not think about from a business perspective.
EA has been releasing games for over 35 years and as of September 2017, they stand behind Activision as the second-largest gaming company. The company was in an awful place in 2013, being voted as the worst company in America, but they were resilient and were able to turnaround the company. Since January of 2014, the EA stock is up almost 700%, and this change was enacted most by the manner in which the culture changed from the top down and they began to really focus on putting the customer first.
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Visit Summary
EA had one of the nicest campuses of any company that was visited. While it did have the appearance of a college with grass malls and modern buildings, it also looked like a playground with statues of creatures, racecars, thrones and more. They also had massive screens playing promotional videos of new EA games making the workplace feel like a very inviting and creative place to work.
Brad Margolis, an alumni of UMD, led the company visit. This lecture was unique because I feel as though I took a lot away from the visit, but I took away more from a personal/ leadership perspective than professional. The lecture began with him telling us about his model of an event map, starting with an event, ending with a result. After an event, we interpret it in a unique way, and from that interpretation, we respond either emotionally or behaviorally, and this response leads to a result. This was so interesting because he highlighted the fact that the way that we interpret results often is not the way someone else interpreted the way event, or maybe we interpret the intentions of someone else improperly. My big takeaway from this was to try to view events from different perspective, because like most people, I can sometimes have a narrow view on what an event actually means.
Brad also uniquely had us do an activity, the electric maze. During the electric maze activity, the class had to silently try to maneuver through a carpet maze that would beep when we misstepped, then we would have to take the same path off the carpet that we took onto the carpet. The activity encouraged the class to develop new methods of communication, work as a team, and most importantly, fail quickly. If we laughed after a mistake and lazily left the maze only for the next person to slowly move onto it, then we would have never been successful. We learned this, and on the second try, we were extremely efficient and were able to glide through the maze by failing quickly and working together.
When we began to discuss EA, Brad told us about how EA’s new model is all about putting the player first. Their strategy includes the motto “staying close to our player is the only path to success,” and they do everything possible to make the player experience as pleasurable as possible. EA practices what they preach by bringing in competitive players to test games before they reach the market. By doing this, they get feedback from the people who will actually be playing the game, allowing them to make improvements that the players really value.
From a recruiting standpoint, Brad stressed the importance in being passionate. He said that the “Why EA?” question is where he gets to see the true passion that a prospective employee may have, and without this passion, that person can not be a fit in the company. This passion ties into the EA culture, which is very fast-paced and energized. It is a real team atmosphere, with people from a variety of departments working together to get the final product together.
Key Takeaways
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The physical workplace itself has a significant impact on the mindset of a company’s employees. When I walked around the EA campus and through their buildings, I could feel the kid in me coming out, with my creative juices flowing. EA achieved this through the decor of the buildings, with posters, statues, thrones, screens showing game promos, and more.
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Failing forward is incredibly important in being a successful entrepreneur. Much like with the electric maze, it is almost impossible to avoid failure when starting a business. If an entrepreneur frets on their mistakes and does not learn from them, then they will never be successful. The key is to extract key takeaways from a failure, and quickly use these takeaways to come back and do better.
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Since their unfortunate 2013, when EA decided to put a greater emphasis on putting the player first, EA shows similarities to Amazon. The two companies stand out for their commitment to the consumer, and for EA, enacting this new emphasis on consumers is what threw them back into success.
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Passion is key. Whenever applying for a job, it is important to find a reason to be passionate about that position, and it is essential to try and make the interviewer feel your passion in an interview.
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A competitor is not simple to define; EA does not just consider their competitors to be other companies that manufacture video games, but rather all other things that take up free-time throughout the day for their consumers such as Netflix, sports, and social media.
Post Visit Actions/ Thoughts
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After the EA visit, I connected with Brad Margolis on LinkedIn. I thought that Brad was one the best presenters that we heard from, and I envy his ability to chose his words in a way that makes every word he says meaningful.
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I was very impressed with the culture of EA, and I think that more companies should strive to make the workplace inspire their employees to be better.
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EA has recently done a great job in putting the player first, and if they continue to do this, they can compete with Activision for the esteemed title of the best in the industry.