(PS2, XBox) ( EA Sports )
To develop Arena Football, EA hired a third-part developer, Hypnotix, in New Jersey. They had made a name for themselves making Midway-style arcade sports games, with high production values and a tinge more adult thematically. This led us to acquiring Hypnotix, and moving their entire team to Tiburon, to be part of JDGroup. The team were super talented and focused, led by Mike Taramykin.
Arena Football remains one of the best games I have been associated with. The technical challenge was huge, as we were asked to build it on top of the Madden football codebase. This wasn’t easy when you’re trying to build a more arcade game in nature, which relies on more advanced animation and camera controls than Madden was capable of at that time. But the Hypnotix team, now successfully transplanted in JDGroup, did a fantastic job.
I don’t think EA SPORTS was expecting Arena Football to turn out as well as it did; I know that the reason the company undertook it was some deal related to options on a future AFL team, assuming that its expansion went to plan. But it was a high quality offering that ultimately served as a wake-up call for the NFL Madden franchise at the studio; so much so that Mike Taramykin was asked to help out on Madden the following year. But Madden is an institution; it was Tiburon’s central nervous system and was set in its ways. Part of Mike’s genius is also a weakness - he could rub people the wrong way in order to get what he wanted - and after a short time, the Madden organ rejected him, and he was back in JDGroup. Which was great news for us, because we had just inherited the tired Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchise, and Mike was just the guy to help give it a shot in the arm.