EA Sports / Tiburon

Finally got around to updating some of the project pages! Still a work-in-progress but some good stuff!

Jon Dean

Tiburon Life

Fission / JDGroup

For a short while I was General Manager of a new group that was being established called Fission; the idea being that the group would serve EA SPORTS and other divisions within EA in building special versions of hit games for handheld and more casual play devices.  3 super-talented people had been hired prior to my arrival to kickstart the Fission team - Daryl Holt, Peter Arisman and Paul Kashuk - all in the art field, no engineering headcount which was surprising to me.  We became known as the Fab Four, each one of us a Beatle!  

The surprises continued; about 4 weeks after my start date my boss, studio GM Steve Chiang informed me that EA had decided not to proceed with Fission after all. I was to be an Executive Producer (EP)  on multiple projects until it was decided what next to do with me, and my team would work with me on whatever I worked on.  So it transpired that "JDGroup" (me, Daryl, Paul, Peter plus around 100 other headcount that got re-assigned to me) got to work on a mish-mash of projects - versions of mainline franchises that were to be built by 3rd party developers; internal skus for new platforms such as Sony PSP; the NASCAR franchise as it's EP (Chris Gray) was moving to head up the infamous "Superman Returns" project, and the Tiger Woods franchise that I was asked to move from its beloved home at company HQ in Redwood Shores, CA, to become a Tiburon fixture (a process that was politically very unpopular not least in Redwood Shores).

NASCAR 09

(PS3, X360, PS2) ( EA Sports )

NASCAR 08

(PS3, X360, PS2) ( EA Sports )

This was our first attempt at a "next-gen" racing game.  We tried to both improve the realism, as well as make it more forgiving for novice racers.  We assembled one of the best teams on this project, including Art Director Paul Kashuk and Asst AD Jerry Phaneuf.

NASCAR 07

(PS2, XBox, PSP) ( EA Sports )

My first NASCAR title, taking the internal team at Tiburon into JDGroup and everyone learning to play nicely. The team at first couldn’t understand why an F1-loving Brit could lead a NASCAR team - and nor could this F1-loving Brit. I mean, it’s all left turns. But I quickly learned what a remarkable sport this is, and how technical it is.

From memory, PS2 and Xbox were internal team and PSP was with a UK team whose name escapes me at the time of writing. But they were awesome too.

Arena Football: Road To Glory

(PS2) ( EA Sports )

AFL was more of a success than EA SPORTS had expected, so to cash in, they wanted another version turned around in the year. One thing I had learned at Midway was that arcade sports games don’t work on an annualized basis, but what the company’s senior exec team wants, they get, so JDGroup turned out a sequel using third-party developers. It was OK, it just didn’t have a lot new to offer and it became the last of EA SPORTS’ AFL licensed games.

Arena Football

(PS2, XBox) ( EA Sports )

AFL-anim.gif

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.

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent

(Nintendo NDS) ( Electronic Arts )

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Yes, that’s right, EA SPORTS’ studio Tiburon did develop some non-sports games, including the Nintendo DS version of EA’s hit Bond franchise, GoldenEye. From memory we worked with a local studio in Orlando , nSpace. I think it was the first game I shipped for EA, and the first game from my ‘Fission’ group!