Def Jam: Icon

• Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
• Published by: Electronic Arts
• Developed by: EA Chicago
• Release Date: March 2007
• Genre: Fighting
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Online: Yes

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Kudo Tsunoda Interview

With his casual demeanor, long hair, and tendency to wear sunglasses at times when it can't possibly be necessary, EA's Kudo Tsunoda creates a slightly different first impression than most game developers. Last week, the EA Chicago general manager and executive producer saw his studio officially inaugurated after already having released the well received Fight Night Round 3 and gotten well into development on the upcoming Def Jam: Icon. I took some time to sit down with Tsunoda in Chicago to chat about EA Chicago's design philosophies, his views on the industry, and what it's like working for the world's largest video game publisher.

Shack: Despite today being your inauguration, EA Chicago has obviously already released Fight Night Round 3, so you guys have been around for a little while at least. How long have you been together?

Kudo Tsunoda: We've been in existence for about two and a half years now, about two years since last February so two years and eight months. But for a little while, we merged with a smaller developer, NuFX, to start up EA Chicago. For the first part of our history, we worked out of the former NuFX offices while we were trying to get our downtown building all ready and fitted out for what we wanted to do. It's our grand opening here because we moved into our new downtown offices. I think it's always been the plan for our studio to move downtown. It's just Chicago, and this is such a stimulus-rich environment where it's so much more creative than where the old offices were. We spent a good amount of time making sure we found a home that really fit what we do, was a good creative space, and was in this rich part of Chicago. It's just nice finally having our own building and watching EA Chicago as opposed to EA Hoffman Estates, where our previous office was.

Shack: Was the studio founded with a particular goal in mind? You speak a lot about design goals of your studio. Is that something you have brought, or was it founded specifically to take advantage of certain opportunities?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think we already have a good amount of expertise from working on the Fight Night series, in terms of fighting games. One of the goals of our studios when we started was that we wanted to be recognized industry-wide as a premiere fighting game studio, where we make the best fighting games in the industry. I think with Fight Night and what we see in Def Jam: Icon, that's something we've been able to prove out. Our second big goal was really wanting to be a premiere next-gen developer. I think that with the next-gen consoles coming out, the level of creativity and the spirit of innovation that's here at EA Chicago will really focus on developing a new way of playing games. I think, again, we've been able to really establish ourselves on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as a premiere developer. In the long term, plans of the studio as we move forward are to start developing more intellectual property for EA. I think that's going to be a big focus EA-wide, just getting creative intellectual property projects developed. This has been such a center of coming up with new cooler ways to play games or experience game, and focusing for this studio on starting to deliver some new IP products.

Shack: How would you respond to criticism that EA has not invested enough in new intellectual property?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think that it's kind of a [misconception]. EA does more new IP products than any developer or publisher in the industry, it's just that because our portfolio is so large that obviously there are those sequel products. You take a game like Madden football. It's not like we're going to stop making Madden. Football comes out every year, and so we make a football game every year, and that totally makes sense. We're able to deliver cool new features, and you're getting all the new player rosters and updates, and that's something you're going to do every year. EA is the biggest publisher and developer in the industry, and we make really great games, with the spirit of innovation and creativity here. In the industry, there are a lot of people that like to hate on EA, and they'll try and find whatever they can to try and bring down the company that's doing the best. I hear that stuff, and--well, number one, we do more new IP than any other publisher in the world, but also we have a wide selection of different products in our portfolio.

I mean, if you look at Def Jam: Icon, it's a totally new and fresh game. You can see that spirit of innovation in Def Jam: Icon, even though it's the third version of a game in the Def Jam series. Just as a game developer, whether you're working on new IP or whether you're working on a licensed product or whether you're working on a sequel, as a developer it's your job to make that product innovative no matter what type of game it is. You can look at Def Jam: Icon and say, "Look at all the innovation," but it is the third game in a series. You just forget that because you're delivering so much new stuff in the product. As a game developer, I will state that every game we make, whether it's a sports game like Fight Night [or] Def: Jam Icon...the goal with developers is, no matter what kind of game it is, it's up to us to put the creative play on the game no matter what type of game it is.

Shack: This year at GDC, Neil Young of EA LA spoke on a process they use at his studio called "Feature Innovation," whereby every year in a yearly franchise they have a quota of these discrete innovations that they consider pushing the series forward. Is that a theory to which you subscribe, or is it an EA-wide directive?

Kudo Tsunoda: I think every studio has their own ways of doing things and ways of explaining things, but I think that the system across all EA studios is the understanding that no matter what game you're working on, if you're not delivering a fresh gameplay experience, then consumers are not going to buy it. At EA Chicago, it's not a certain number of features or anything like that, but I think everyone here understands that every product that comes out of EA Chicago is a new and innovative game, and it's got to have the same level of innovation as the first game in a series. I think everyone has different ways of explaining it, but that's the filter that all EA development teams look at making games under. No matter if it's Madden football, where we've done this game fourteen years in a row, or Def Jam where it's the third game in a series, or a totally new IP, it's up to us to deliver the same amount of creativity and innovation in all of those products. That's what makes consumers have a good time, and really, that's what we're in the business of doing. People have fun.

Shack: Do you guys in fact have any new intellectual properties in the works at your studio?

Kudo Tsunoda: We're working on another licensed product that is unannounced, and then a new IP product here as well. EA Chicago is a good example where we've got a sequel product that we're working on, but we do it fresh. We've got another licensed game that's actually a new game series that we're starting. Then we've got new IP as well, so it's a wide spectrum in our portfolio. But for me, it's all the same problem of how do we deliver something that's new and fun to play.

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