EA Sports, is the publisher of the Madden, Tiger Woods and NCAA Football series of video games among others. This Friday (March 20th), they will have a Community Day at their EA Tiburon studios which will allow some tribe members to try out an early version of NCAA Football 10.
I came to EA Tiburon in the fall of 2006 and was fortunate enough a few months later to organize the first ever community event for NCAA Football. The big feedback coming out of that event was that our attendees loved the opportunity to check out the game, but that they’d love to visit us earlier in the year when they could give us some feedback while the title was still in development. Since then it’s been our priority to move community day events earlier in the year. This product cycle I’m happy to report that all of our community events are at a point in development where our attendees’ feedback can help make sure our games are tuned to the liking of the community.
When meeting clients, I often use the EA Tiburon case as an example of how a Tribal Strategy can impact other areas of the organization besides marketing - in this case product development. The fact that they have decided to move up the date of the Community Day demonstrates to the tribe that EA is serious about building a better product.
The Community Day is just one part of a larger strategy to continuously improving how they connect with the tribe.
Even though we’re not quite ready to open the floodgates of information and tell you everything about NCAA Football 10, we do want you to know that we’re taking a lot of care in developing the game. We are taking the quality of our games to new heights by involving the community early on. You’ve seen some examples of this with our producer involvement on the forums and here on the Inside EA SPORTS Blog and this Friday’s NCAA Football 10 Community Day is another step towards making sure we involve the community every step of the way. And while you may not learn all of the NCAA 10 features this Friday, you will get an inside look at the community day.
