Electronic Arts: What It Means For Daytona USA & My Future Career

Okay, there's still a few things on the stack for me to talk about but this is one of 'em and it's sort of relevant.

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Here at FIEA, there's this HUGE wave of advertising for Electronic Arts.  EA has studios all over the country.  Speakers show up on occasion to talk about stuff.  Even my programming teacher worked at EA for some time.  The main reason why is because EA is probably one of the most accommodating to entry-level game designers.  Clearly, one of their goals is to stroll by the building, advertise, and hire as many new employees as possible.  Then assign them to Madden, FIFA, Rugby, whatever the hell there is.

OBEY.

But I'll get to careers at EA in just a second.  We had a speaker from EA today who has 17 years worth of experience with them.  What his name was, I forgot...I'll probably update this if I find out.  EDIT: It's Dave Ross.  He was talking about licensed content.  About how you must balance working within the demands of the license's owners come hell or high water.  He was talking about Madden, NCAA Football, Lord of the Rings, all that good stuff.  Also, he mentioned EA is bringing back NFL Blitz...awesome, though I thought NFL Street 1 & 2 were awesome too (though NFL Street 3 and NFL Tour sucked ass).

He got to the subject of NASCAR (this is when the vast majority of the audience groans).  He was talking about the hoops they had to jump through to get the games made.  They needed the actual NASCAR license which also came with the drivers & teams.  Then they needed advertisements and all that crap.  They also needed to license the tracks which were separate from the NASCAR name.  It costs about $10,000 per track to license.

Now this is where things get dicey.  We all know that Sega made Daytona USA (1994), Daytona USA 2 (1998), and Daytona USA 2001 (uh...2001).  Now I actually asked this guy after the presentation what he knew about the Daytona license and how it pertained to EA.  Now some may have a hunch about what happened, but this is what I got out of this.  I think I'm right but I'm not 100% sure.  Please correct me politely if I'm wrong (with proof, of course).

Sega got exclusive rights to the Daytona name back in 1994.  How did they pull it off???  I don't know...but basically, EA couldn't put the Daytona track in their NASCAR games until 2001.  That's right--Sega basically denied EA the Daytona track.  So while we hate on EA for taking the Daytona name from us, bear in mind that Sega did the same thing back in the day.

Yeah, TAKE IT EA!!!

This also explains why Sega had an influx of Daytona games in the late 90's.  Daytona 2, Daytona DC, Daytona CCE/Deluxe.  Sega was sort of "obligated" to make an arcade sequel to Daytona 1 so they went ahead and did it.  Scud Race (1996) was originally some Daytona 2 prototype but they changed it to the touring car them we know today.  Then they went ahead and made an actual Daytona 2 (1998) based off the engine they used for Scud Race.

This game did not have Daytona in it thanks to Sega.  Hmm, would you rather Daytona USA 1 & 2 OR a Nascar '98 game with Daytona in it?  The choice is obvious.  Although I am eternally grateful to EA and NASCAR '98 for introducing me to Flirting With Disaster by Molly Hatchet.

By 2001 (give or take a year), after the license had run its course, Daytona struck exclusive rights to three companies--EA, Papyrus, and Monster Games.  This meant that Sega couldn't make another "Daytona" game even if they wanted to.  So basically, EA returned the favor with a haymaker to Sega's face.  But that's to be understood since EA made a friggin official NASCAR game WITHOUT the hallmark Daytona International Speedway.

Then again, even if Sega could've used the Daytona trademark, odds are they wouldn't have because they're incompetent like that.

After EA made their last NASCAR game (2009), the Daytona licensed was liberated.  Then anyone could get it.  Which explains why NASCAR: The Game (made by Eutechnyx) and Daytona USA (XBL/PSN) both held the same license.  So the Daytona trademark owners were just stingy like that.  Now they've loosened up a bit which is good.  No excuse now for Sega to make more Daytona games!  I guess.  Once Nagoshi-San wakes up from the tanning salon.

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Speaking of the great gods of gaming over there at EA, let me describe this drive for EA to hire new students.  Like I said, they do a lot of advertising over at FIEA.  You know they're gunning for us newbies.  When entering the marketplace, it's like the NFL draft.  Except that EA owns two-thirds of the picks.

In the eighth pick of the FIEA draft, EA selects...Eric (last name excluded).  You'll begin working on Need for Speed immediately.  Have fun!

Other companies that have expressed interest in new students is Xynga (oh boy, love working on gimmicky games like Farmville), Interactive Studios (Epic Mickey), and uh....I think Bioware (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, OMG ROXOR MY SOXORS).  They had a couple of FIEA alumni from Bioware come back to speak so maybe this means they're hiring...?  I don't know.

Compare that to companies like Blizzard and Valve who have little interest in "newbies"--they go for experienced employees more than anything.  Though that's not set in stone--if you're a good student and you strike gold, you MAY get lucky.

Anyway, I'm not going to come on here and bash EA more than I do.  Yeah sure, many of their games are mediocre.  Yeah sure, Origin is spyware in a box.  EDIT: They're going over the line pressuring game journalists over Battlefield 3 reviews.  Way too easy to take pokes at "evil corporations" these days.  Although if you hate EA for that reason, then you might as well hate Sega too since they're on par (sort of...Sega isn't as strong as they used to be).

Though my main goal is to work Sega.  Well DUH, you know that.  But Sega is risky business.  For one, they're located in California...San Francisco to be intact.  Is that good for me to travel that far to an economically-reeling state where you can smoke pot all you want but can't even get toys in your Happy Meals anymore?  EA has studios everywhere in North America so they're much more flexible to work for.  They're even opening a studio near Baton Rouge (an hour drive from my hometown of Slidell, LA).  It's a stable company and working for them would be easy sailing.

But is that why I entered the game industry to begin with?  To work on perennial Madden titles for the rest of my career?  I don't think so.  We're here to HELP SEGA.  That's one of my primary goals.

Take the blue pill, go work for Electronic Arts.  It's an easy job with a decent salary but hardly rewarding at the end of the day.

Take the red pill, try to work for Sega.  Travel half-way across the country and be forced to live a different lifestyle.  Possibly get fired and are stranded from home.  But you get a shot at flying to Japan, meeting the Sega crew & Yu Suzuki, and working on a new Daytona title.

So what's it gonna be???

Though EA is prevalent here, not everyone kisses up to them.  Some say that EA is a good place to begin working at to gain experience but it's not someplace that many people want to stay.  While EA publishes a lot of self-made sports titles and coolio games like Mass Effect, they're stale when you think about it.  So if I do work for EA, just consider that it's not permanent at all.  Though this makes EA sound like a revolving door of good little drones and that's not fun.

Anyway...not much else for me to say.  EA is EA.  Haters gonna hate.

Carmageddon For Realz & Supermodel Paradise

This weekend in Los Angeles, a major 10-mile stretch of interstate is being shut down which is sure to screw up commute even more than it already is.  People have dubbed this "Carmageddon."

I don't like Carmageddon but this story's funny.  Pedestrians, get the HELL away.

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Also, take a look at the new Supermodel emulator news.  After much work, our good friend Bart has figured out how to correct some of the bad textures AND implement sound!  This on top of the analog controls.  Expect something on that soon.

And it gets even better.  When I attend FIEA this August, part of the tuition affords me a damn sweet laptop (for game design, nonetheless).  By then, significant improvements to the emulator will (hopefully) be made.  ALL ABOARD THE MODEL3 TRAIN!!!!  Any way to donate money to Bart???

Specs:

Base Unit:
Dell Mobile Precision M6600

Processor:
Intel Core i5-2520M Dual Core 2.50GHz 3MB, Dell Mobile Precision M4600/M6600

Memory:
4.0GB, DDR3-1333 SDRAM, 2 DIMM, Dell Mobile Precision

Keyboard:
Internal Backlit English Keyboard, Dell Mobile Precision

Video Card:
NVIDIA Quadro 3000M with 2GB GDDR5, Dell Mobile Precision M6600

Hard Drive:
250GB Hard Drive, 7200RPM, Dell Mobile Precision

Monitor:
17.3" UltraSharp FHD(1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit with Premium Panel Guarantee

Operating System:
Genuine Windows 7 Professional64-bit

TBU:
210W/240W switchable Slim 3-Pin, AC Adapter Dell Precision M6400

TBU:
US - 6-FT, 3-Pin Flat Power Cord for Mobile Precision

CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive:
8X DVD Drive, Dell Mobile Precision

CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive:
Cyberlink Power DVD 9.5.1,Media, Dell OptiPlex, Latitude and Precision Workstation

Sound Card:
Integrated webcam with single digital microphone, HD/Full HD, Dell Mobile Precision M6600

Wireless:
Dell WLAN 1501 (802.11b/g/n) 1/2 MiniCard, Dell Latitude E

Feature
9-cell (97Wh) Primary Battery, Dell Mobile Precision

Service:
Basic Hardware Service: Next Business Day Limited Onsite Service After Remote Diagnosis 2 Year Extended

Service:
Basic Hardware Service: Next Business Day Limited Onsite Service After Remote Diagnosis Initial Year

Service:
Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus Service Extended Year(s)

Service:
Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus Service Initial Year

Extended Service:
Extended Battery Service for Years 2 and 3 of System Life

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...I only feel sad that I couldn't do more to help Bart & the Sega faithful.  While it's a time for joy, it's also saddening for me in a way.  As of right now, I'm just a guy with a blog...

California Speed -- Garbage With REDEEMING QUALITIES

Well, everyone knows about Midway (they're long gone now).  The Cruis'n series was Midway's bread-and-butter racing series.  At first, there was Cruis'n USA.  Then they expanded their sights larger and made Cruis'n World.  Then they decided to "up the ante" with Cruis'n Exotica which covered more intriguing locations not covered in the prequel.

However, let's focus on Atari Games.  In 1996, they were consumed by Midway.  Atari Games was renamed to Midway Games West to avoid confusion with regular old Midway.  Atari was responsible for some old school games like Paperboy, Marble Madness, S.T.U.N. Runner, Super Sprint, Hard Drivin', Gauntlet, Area 51, and so forth.  Read more here.

But Atari isn't the main focus of this article.  It's about California Speed.  You see, while Midway was cooking up Cruis'n games, Atari was cooking up Rush games (SF Rush, Rush 2, Rush 2049).  Now IMO, I think the Rush series is far superior to the Cruis'n series.  However, Atari, seeing what their Midway brethren had done, also felt the need to get their hands dirty and make their own Cruis'n style game and they called it California Speed.

Supplemental Material: San Francisco Rush N64, Cruis'n World N64.

Why not California?  The largest state in size and population in the continental US.  Highest and lowest altitudes in the continental US (Mt. Whitney and Death Valley respectively).  It has the 7th-10th largest GDP in the world.  Its population also consists of 7.3% illegal immigrants, voted heavily Democrat in the last 20 years, and in San Francisco, you can't buy Happy Meals with toys anymore.  What else do you need to know...

So while Midway was going BIG, Atari was going SMALL.  The state of California packs more action in it than most of the world combined.  And for the most part, they're right.  Along with big cities and noticeable landmarks, California Speed contains plenty of crazy courses and environments in it, such as supercomputers, roller coasters, shopping malls, and so forth.  Midway only started to up the ante with Cruis'n Exotica and by then the "crap racer" genre has already overstayed its welcome...

In retrospect: Cruis'n World was released 1996 (arcade) and 1998 (N64) while California Speed was released in 1998 (arcade) and 1999 (N64).  I'm not even going to talk about the arcade version since it sucks IMO (mostly because of the music).  This one's entirely about the N64.

However, despite the "praise" I give to California Speed, lest you forget this is still a mediocre racing game only exceeding the Cruis'n series in certain aspects.  The handling and graphics in California Speed is awfully similar to that of San Francisco Rush--like Atari just took the source code, ripped it to pieces, and tried to make an awful Cruis'n clone.  I think that the Cruis'n games have sharper visuals and you'll notice Rush's blotchy visuals and sparse detail in selection locations will come into play.

Which one has the better sense of speed is debatable.  California Speed cars top 180 mph while Cruis'n World cars average 150 mph although the latter allow higher speeds due to upgrades.  You make up your own minds there.  Either way, I think both games' sense of speed is rather dry so neither is too spectacular IMO.  I know that California Speed has the longer courses of the two, clocking in at over 2:30 while Cruis'n World's last around a mediocre 1:45 per run.

In California Speed, your car is much more glued to the road, you can't explode, you can't do stunts, and you can't even flip into the air.  At least in Cruis'n games, you have to avoid contact with other stuff and turn on a dime.  In California Speed, there is relatively less interaction with the game as you generally cruise forward dodging occasional traffic.  In one old review (IGN's if I recall), they described the game as a "one-finger game"--that you only need one finger to succeed and that is hold the gas and that's it.  You can bounce off everything and you can't fail.  On the other hand, the AI cars are way too stingy and will ride your ass the whole way unless you don't touch anything, so that's weird.

But regardless, let's get to the game footage, which I find fascinating for some reason.  The car selection is rather bland, but it has some funny as hell cars, like a golf cart or a forklift.  Also, the music in the N64 game just kicks ass--I can't explain why, but some of it is damn good driving music.  So here we go:

Los Angeles:

Drive down interstate, through an aqueduct, then through Beverly Hills.  Pretty standard stuff but the music is AWESOME.  I also love how the guy destroys a tree at 2:17 and doesn't lose any speed whatsoever.

Santa Cruz:

This track starts of normally then it's blandness continues for a while until you start driving on a roller coaster.  Holy crap.

Monterey:

Drive along a beach (the water doesn't slow you down at all WTF), then through an aquarium (Scud Race Underwater Tunnel!!) and then along a golf course.  This game knows no bounds.

San Francisco:

A fairly decent replica of San Fran with the hills and the row houses.  BTW, you don't just drive on the Golden Gate Bridge, you drive UP the sides.  You can see some elements from the old Rush games here, such as the sneaky subway tunnel.

Yosemite:

BOY, this stage has a TON of elevation changes.  Otherwise, just your normal outdoor stage.  Flopping through the river and trees and whatnot.  Not a big fan of the New Age Techno, but it does sound like Rush 2 music to me.

Central Valley:

Well gee golly, if this isn't the greatest banjo pluckin' I've ever heard.  The music changes to some sexy disco beat in the mall.  DAMN, this is the world's longest mall--must be 5 mi / 8 km long.  You could actually "hit" sprite people in the arcade version, but not here.

San Diego:

JUMP THE BORDER WOOHOO!  You drive on aircraft carriers and stuff.  Yo, look at this dude in the golf cart at 1:50 LOLOLOLOL

Mojave Desert:

You drive through a desert, a military base, then into a large UFO.  It's stupid but I love this damn song for some reason.

Mt. Shasta:

Wow, the volcano level.  You'll see that a lot of out the wilderness areas in this game are relatively similar (just trees and crap) but then you enter that volcano which looks like Red Mountain from Sonic Adventure.

Silicon Valley:

This is the big supercomputer level.  This one's pretty cool.

That's about it in terms of tracks.  There's also Highway 1, and some other crap bonus courses like Fuji Speedway (although that's in JAPAN), San Andreas fault, and a small replica of California.  There's also Laguna Seca and Sears Point, but I think those are only available in the arcade version.  You do your own research.  Overall, the game sucks and has nothing on Sega who was busy kicking ass with Daytona USA at this point in history (1998-1999), but it shows that some other developers out there "have it" when it comes to making crazy racing games.  So adios, amigos.