March 22, 2004
Electronic Arts Game Design Program at USC CNTV
ELECTRONIC ARTS ANNOUNCES MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR GIFT
TO USC SCHOOL OF CINEMA-TELEVISION’S
INTERACTIVE MEDIA DIVISION
Funds Will Expand School’s Global Leadership
in Computer Game Research and Education
Press release below
ELECTRONIC ARTS ANNOUNCES MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR GIFT
TO USC SCHOOL OF CINEMA-TELEVISION’S
INTERACTIVE MEDIA DIVISION
Funds Will Expand School’s Global Leadership
in Computer Game Research and Education
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 22, 2004, 2004 — Electronic Arts (EA) (Nasdaq: ERTS) announced today that it has made a multi-million dollar donation to the USC School of Cinema-Television (USC-CNTV) to advance interactive media education and create a launch pad for the next generation of interactive entertainment. The contribution, part of EA’s global educational and talent development effort, will fund two new facets of USC-CNTV’s Division of Interactive Media: the Electronic Arts Interactive Entertainment Program and the Electronic Arts Endowed Faculty Chair. The EA Interactive Entertainment Program is a 3-year Master of Fine Arts degree program. The program will help forward USC-CNTV’s goal to educate the next generation of high-level gaming design and visionary thinkers in what will be one of the 21st Century’s primary entertainment media.
“The School’s rich storytelling tradition and long-standing commitment to technological experimentation make it an ideal partner for EA,” said Don Mattrick, President, Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios. “This is an excellent opportunity for EA to invest in the future of the industry by providing today’s students with the skills and knowledge they will need to push technology and entertainment forward.”
Mattrick, the newest appointee to the School’s Board of Councilors, will be part of a high-profile team — the ranks of which include entertainment giants Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, John Wells, and Robert Zemeckis — that will work to ensure that interactive media studies at USC continues to move confidently in the direction of growth and innovation.
“This gift clearly demonstrates EA’s commitment to expanding the frontiers of game design, and to developing a well rounded, highly skilled, and forward-thinking talent base overall,” said Elizabeth M. Daley, Dean, USC School of Cinema-Television. “The School’s position as an international academic leader is further solidified by its relationship with the world’s number-one interactive entertainment developer — a partnership that will set new standards of excellence in a field that is truly changing global culture.”
The EA gift will fuel the growth of the School’s Interactive Media Division’s gaming component, and enable the Division, headed by Scott Fisher, to define and expand this nascent, multi-faceted field. With the aid of these funds, the School will grow its efforts to graduate students who are visionary thinkers, but who also have a deep understanding of the crafts and skills required to produce quality content for a diverse media array.
Specifically, the Electronic Arts Interactive Entertainment Program will spawn the creation of a curriculum and research lab to explore the boundaries of interactive entertainment and to study the emerging discipline of game development. The gift will enable the creation of an intra-USC gaming community that will bring together creative and technical expertise in cinema-television, the arts, and technical sciences, and will provide students with invaluable real-world experience through internships and work-study programs at EA, including its newest Los Angeles campus.
The Electronic Arts Chair will enable the Division to meet the intensifying demand for talented game developers who are solidly grounded in story and content. The endowed funds to support faculty specializing in game development elevates the field into the ranks of other professions, such as law and engineering, worthy of scholarly study and specialized training.
"It's astonishing how quickly games have become an essential part of the entertainment arts, and there is no better place than USC to nurture the creative and conceptual thinkers who will take the medium to places we can only imagine," said USC alumnus George Lucas, a longtime supporter of the School of Cinema-Television, the founder of game-design studio LucasArts and the filmmaker behind the Star Wars series. "USC is a major force in cinema education, and thanks to Electronic Arts, it can become a leader in interactive arts education as well."
“To create the next generation of entertainment, we need the next generation of talent,” said Rusty Rueff, Executive Vice President of Human Resources, Electronic Arts. “Melding storytelling, art, music, game design, and technology has become so complex that it is imperative for tomorrow’s designers and producers to acquire an education with both depth and breadth in order to achieve success in our ever-growing industry.”
“Our new development studio in Playa Del Rey and this investment reflect EA’s long term commitment to Los Angeles and Southern California,” said John Batter, Vice President and General Manager, Electronic Arts Los Angeles. “We are proud to be expanding our presence within the region by fostering creativity through education and by stimulating current and future growth within the entertainment industry.”
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About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, Electronic Arts posted revenues of $2.5 billion for fiscal 2003. The company develops, publishes and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA GAMES™, and EA SPORTS BIG™. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.
Electronic Arts, EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG, and EA GAMES are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
About the USC School of Cinema-Television
In 2004, the USC School of Cinema-Television celebrates 75 years of training the next generation of creative talent and scholars in film, television, and new media. Co-founded by the University of Southern California and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1929, the School offered the first bachelor’s degree in film in the country and today is consistently ranked as the top program of its kind. Its more than 8,000 graduates — the ranks of which include such stellar figures as Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, Ron Howard, James Ivory, Randal Kleiser, George Lucas, Michelle Manning, Bill Mechanic, Neal Moritz, Walter Murch, Jay Roach, Gary Rydstrom, Edward Saxon, Stacey Sher, Bryan Singer, John Singleton, Robert Zemeckis, and Laura Ziskin — are among the entertainment industry’s most distinguished animators, scholars, teachers, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, sound experts and industry executives.
Comments
Excellent!
Posted by: Mike at March 22, 2004 01:01 PM
While I applaud USC's attempt to remain at the forefront of emerging technologies of expression, I fear the current video game market represents a dead end. The video game, as a form of artisitc and storytelling expression, is waning in its expressive power. Every year the barriers to entry to creating games increase--a sign that the medium is belonging more to the large companies (whose interests stem from the almight buck) rather than to the young, inspired artist with a message to share with the world.
When the medium for distributing and experience video games because as standardized as the movie projector or canvas, and the tools become as inexpensive and accessible as cameras and paints, then, and only then, will video games be able to truly call themselves an artistic medium. And hopefully, by then, we'll have a better name for them than video games...
Posted by: Mickey at March 22, 2004 02:19 PM
Time to open that bottle of champagne!
Posted by: andrew at March 22, 2004 02:21 PM
in response to Mickey's comments, I think that such remarks reflect a rather defeatist viewpoint. i agree w/ the idea that a lot of consolidation is happening, and unfortunately, I see the games industry heading in the same way as hollywood -- but I think that within this system, at least EA, the biggest developer out there, recognizes that there is an important place in the game world for compelling, new and original content, and the least we can do is see where that takes us.
Posted by: will at March 22, 2004 06:02 PM
This is a good sign of the awareness about the lacking of creativity and academic research from the game industry. We will see the big change between school and industry coming soon.
Posted by: jenova at March 22, 2004 06:13 PM
I am a member of the industy, and from my experience I have to say that Mickey is both right and wrong. First off, EA has obviously donated the money mainly for thier own bennefit. It is not as if they would hide this either, because the better the industry does as a whole, the better they will do in general. It simply is logical buisness to promote the areas where you hire your talent from.
As for the loss of games as an art...I have to say that the art has barely begun to even be recognized as such. We are on the brink of seeing video games turn into the largest, most expressive industry in entertainment...so naturally it will become a big buisness and an institution. All for the better I say. With more money and more organization we will end up seeing more games, more technology, and more art. Think of it like this...just because part of the music industry is completely manufactured (Spears, N'Sync, etc.), it has not shut down the rest of the folks who still reguard music as a beautiful form of human expression.
Posted by: john at March 22, 2004 07:17 PM
Yes, the barriers to making a commercially successful game have gone up. Artistic quality in games has suffered somewhat. I'd like to think that the parallels between the game and film industry are self-evident. It is difficult to make a commercially successful film without studio involvment- and only in the past decade have we seen independent film become commercially viable on a regular basis.
The game industry is in its teens right now. It is still not a mature field. This is changing though. Pretty soon every hot art student will be majoring in game design.
Just remember- just because you can't make Half-Life 2 by yourself doesn't mean you can't make a game.
Posted by: Patrick Gavin at March 23, 2004 10:11 AM
Mike, I believe your views are myopic at best. The game development is actually MORE accessible than film making. More people have ready access to a computer and free development tools than they do a camera and film. The fact is anyone can walk into a public library, download a free c-compiler and some game libraries and get started on developing a game. It isn't the cost of entry that is the barrier, but finding and developing people who can succeed at the logical thought processes required in programming and the creative process in developing interesting stories and scenarios. To this end, EA and USC are nurturing these budding developers.
Personally, I'm more interested in the story elements. As a Theater major and playwright in college, you rarely get to emerse your audience in your world. Film, is obviously more successful. Video games are the next great extension. As a friend of mine and successful game producer said, "In film, the rule is don't tell, show. In games, it's don't show, do."
Posted by: Sean at March 23, 2004 10:44 AM
I’m proud to be a part of this! Seeing USC CNTV trying to forge a new division in this increasingly culturally impactful medium is wonderful. There really is no better place to explore the blossoming fusion between digital media and cinema. The two worlds are increasingly becoming intertwined. I think, just as Patrick mentioned, that this new breed of media is so young, there is so much to be explored.
I like to think of it in relation to the evolution of fine art. For ages mankind struggled to convey simple story and perspective. As those skills grew things become more and more directly representational. Photorealism was the peak of it. It was only then after mastering representation could artists begin to focus on the refined practice of expression and ponder the possibilities of creation. Over the course of the next 20 years the game industry will be flipped upside down and inside out, by the simple fact that this is a evolving medium, and true revolution comes from the underbelly.
Dead ends are only in your head look above and beyond! I’m excited to be sharing this moment with all of you. Thanks to USC and EA!
Posted by: SEDinehart at March 23, 2004 10:52 AM
posted at 10:52AM eh?? and.....CTWR518?
Posted by: pw at March 23, 2004 09:02 PM
Busted!! ;)
Posted by: SEDinehart at March 24, 2004 09:49 AM
Mickey brings up some interesting points, but dead end? No way! The state of the game industry can be compared to the Hollywood Studio system of the 1930s and 40s--good games are currently expensive to make, and require many specialists. I do, however, think that game engine technology will one day mature to the point that anyone can buy an engine that'll render photorealistic scenes in realtime--at this point, buying the technology to make a game will be similar to buying a camcorder and a capture card: anyone will be able to do it.
I disagree with Sean that the availability of free C/C++ compilers makes it easy to begin developing a game--it's like giving someone a set of lenses, an electric motor, and a roll of film, and telling them to shoot a movie. Just as Arriflex & Panavision (camera manufacturers) do not have the expertise to create good motion pictures, nor do most computer programmers have the expertise to create good games, especially the type of story-driven games that Sean is talking about. It's the very reason I got out of software development and came to USC.
All that said, I am encouraged after reading the press announcement, particularly the extent that "story" and "content" are mentioned. I haven't seen enough emphasis on these in the program so far, and am eagerly watching to see how EA's involvement will increase that emphasis.
Posted by: Michael Steffen at March 25, 2004 04:39 PM
Posted by: Mickey at March 28, 2004 11:45 PM
