Visceral Games News and Updates

LIFE AS A DEVELOPMENT QA ASSISTANT LEAD

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In Visceral’s QA Department, we pride ourselves on helping the Development Teams produce the highest quality of titles. I am often asked what it’s like working in Visceral’s QA Department, so I thought I would share my experiences.

My day-to-day usually starts out with a hot Caramel Macchiato. I get to my desk, and usually take a brief moment to straighten up my collection of GI Joe figures. Once they are in place, I hit the workload. I organize our daily tasks, and help lead our QA Team in their testing efforts. We look at the game, and make sure that it’s functional and looking good. When we do find any bugs or issues, we dive into the C++ Code and get our hands dirty, trying to help the Developers weed out any problems. And every now and then, when I am too slow to duck, I take a Nerf Ball or dart to the eye.

The Visceral QA Team is very unique. It’s unlike any other QA Teams that I have worked with in the past. We are extremely passionate about our work, and dedicated to doing whatever it takes to help make the best games possible. We have easily mowed through 15 hour work days, deadline pressures, and a host of other obstacles in our way. Regardless of the situation, we band together to succeed, and at times even sacrifice our own best interests for the good of our teammates.

I am often asked what it takes to become a tester at Visceral. I can tell you that you have to have passion for gaming, be able to respond well to pressure, and be able to adapt to changing circumstances every day. I arrived at EA almost 4 years ago, and set a trail of fire through the QA Department with hard work

Right now I’m focused on our newest title at Visceral, Dante’s Inferno, and it’s looking better and better every day. It seems that every day I get in, and take a look at the game, there is always something newly added in the game that makes me go “aww – did that just happen?” or, “dude, that’s really gross.” It’s absolutely fantastic to test a game like Inferno. It seems that storytelling can be lacking in games today, and this title is also a refreshing reminder that stories “do” matter in games.

It’s also exciting to be following the strong group we have in the studio. They have made a great impact on me personally, and they have made it that much more important for me to dedicate myself to help make our titles great.

How I Turned Playing Games into Research

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Having no clue how to actually get into the game industry, I went to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo for my Computer Science degree. After graduating, learning about programming languages, AI, animation, and coding but no more about the game industry itself, I started looking for game testing positions.

The EA Redwood Shores studio was hiring, and I was soon testing on the first Godfather game. After about a month of mainline testing, a new QA team was formed, designed to work closer with the developers and handle more focused tasks. I was a part of this Dev Test group for about three months when an opening appeared in the Godfather venue design team. Due to my hard work and some lucky timing, I was offered and agreed to transfer to development. I spent the next 5 months working with 4 other designers before the game shipped.

This short experience, the contacts I formed, and the reputation I made for being hard-working and attentive to detail were enough to help me land my first design interview and subsequent job. In 2007, I returned to EARS (now Visceral Games) to be the designer for two levels of Dead Space.

Mine is just one story of how to break into the game industry. The advice I can give to those interested is to work hard, make friends in the right places, and never stop “researching” the games we all enjoy.

Concept Art at Visceral Games

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

As many of you well know, EA Redwood Shores recently renamed itself to be Visceral Games to show our studios’ new focus and direction in the type of games that we want to be making for ourselves and ultimately for gamers. I’m very excited to be part of Visceral Games’ new beginnings. As part of this new direction, we have this section of our website to share with our community the art work that is coming out of Visceral.

The many talented concept artists at our studio produce an enormous amount of work for both pre-production and production, but unfortunately a lot of our work never gets seen outside of our studio. I hope that this section will give our artists a chance to show off all of their hard work and their contributions to our studio. This is a departure from working on licensed games where the materials were a bit more guarded. We’ll be showing both approved artwork and work that didn’t quite making it into our games. (Regardless, unapproved artwork still plays a crucial part in helping us determine the visual direction of our games.) We hope that you will find enjoyment in seeing how we bring our ideas to life, from sketches all the way to what you see in the final game.

We would like to hear from you and what you think of our work. If there are things that you would like us to share with you about concept art, please let us know. We’ll try to make it happen. We want this website to be as much of the community’s as it is ours.

We’ll have more art work to show you in future posts, but here’s a small sampling of the concept art team’s work.

Visceral Games Photo Gallery

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Check out the images below and be among the first to see the Visceral Games studio.

The History of Visceral Games

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Over the years our talent and experience grew, as the studio's focus shifted away from EA owned IP and towards licensed action titles like James Bond, Lord of the Rings, The Simpsons and more, we learned a great deal about what makes a good action game, and the desire to turn our own ideas in to intense action games grew. With games like Dead Space, Dead Space Extraction and Dante’s Inferno, we feel Visceral Games is a return to an older identity and a realization of our future.

In this portion of the site we hope to share some stories from the history of the studio that demonstrate the rich legacy, the incredible talent and the continuing dream of this team. We welcome your thoughts, pictures, input and what can help us create even better games. We want to hear from you.

Jobs at Visceral

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It is our hope that this will give you a real sense of what it is like to work here in every capacity. We also will share some of our personal journeys on how we broke into the industry. Everyone's story is different and we hope that this section will help some of the next wave of great game makers break into the field. If you find there are certain disciplines, jobs or positions you'd like to hear more from, just let us know.

Glen Schofield on Visceral Games

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Redwood Shores Studio, EA's longest running studio, is changing its name to Visceral Games. In the last two years, the studio has adopted a new identity as we've committed ourselves to a new set of development principles and game design values. We make intense, top quality games that push the boundaries of action entertainment. The name change represents who we are and what we believe games should be. Dead Space, Dead Space: Extraction, Dante's Inferno and other concepts in the pipeline illustrate where the studio's expertise and passion lay.

We are extremely proud of the EA Redwood Shores Studio legacy. The name change to Visceral Games is just the next step in the evolving story of EA's studios. We are not abandoning our past but embracing the future. With an obsessive focus on excellence and a relentless commitment to intense action, Visceral Games is set to execute all future games at the quality, innovation and polish of Dead Space. This is just the beginning. Join us as we forge ahead.

This web site is designed for you. Your feedback helps shape who we are, so we want to hear from you. Our goal with this web site is to reach out and create a two way dialogue with our community and fans. The web site is still under construction but we have big plans for it. So come back often and talk to us. We're listening.

Visceral Games: It's in our blood!