Business
Battle of the Century
By John Burns published Jun 1, 2009
Video-game heavyweight Electronic Arts fights to stay on top
Boxing’s on my mind as I pass through the expansive lobby of Electronic Arts in Burnaby and into the dauntingly named Alpha Room. Specifically, I’m thinking of Muhammad Ali’s 1974 knockout of George Foreman in the so-called Rumble in the Jungle. Ali wore Foreman down over eight rounds in a strategy he called the rope-a-dope: let your competition waste his energy coming at you, then, when he’s at his weakest, knock his block off. I’m here to test Fight Night Round 4, the latest entry in EA’s popular boxing franchise for PlayStation and Xbox. The game—due in stores June 30—lets players assume the careers of 48 famous pugilists. Tonight, Big George and I are hoping to revise history.
Testing games is an indispensable step in development. For this evening’s session, game-ops leader Chris Hrennikoff walks a dozen of us through an extended session (with a break for pizza and pop) of Fight Night 4. He’s clearly a veteran: he echoes our questions about interface and ergonomics and draws out our half-formed assessments into crisply edited, unequivocal statements: “So you’d say the opening training regimen should include three extra elements…” That’s practice for you: he’s been running a half-dozen of these sessions every week (half for staff, half for external volunteers like us) for over a year.
The other testers are adept with the buttons, triggers, and sticks, throwing haymakers and weaving around the ring as they progress through the bout. They’re in their late 20s. They keep their hair short. They text frequently (though not about the game—we’ve signed nondisclosure agreements). Some have come for one of several free games at the end of the night (The Godfather II is popular), but most are here out of love for the Fight Night franchise; they want a first peek at Round 4 and appreciate the chance to throw in their two cents. They seem a humble collection for a $4-billion company to court, but a dozen guys in T-shirts is the marketplace in microcosm and EA depends on them to catch the bugs that inevitably creep into both upgrades and new titles.
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Hi,
I am not a professional boxer but like to play sometimes.
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