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My second major title since joining EA Sports almost 2 years ago has finally launched as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 hit stores last Monday, just ten months after 09. So far we're getting mixed reviews from the gaming media... who seems to feel we were light on features for this release. What baffles me is the apparent disconnect between the critics perception of our Live Tournaments feature and the excitement of the hardcore community... which is overwhelming enthusiastic. Take this forum post as an example, a bit extreme... but quite hilarious:

I can't put this game down! Every available moment of the day, I've got my 360 on, and I'm "teeing it up." My overall health has diminished since release date... haven't had a proper meal or adequate sleep since I bought the game. My diet consists of Doritos and Coke, because I don't want to leave the coach. In addition, I find it hard to sleep at night... thoughts of Live Tournaments, Gamernet shots, Tournament Challenges, Playing the Pros, etc. filling my mind. My body is still under the affects of the adrenaline high of TW10.

My thinking is... this is likely a result of our marketing focus on this year's game for the Wii. Nobody in the media is paying attention to the x360 or ps3 version and our marketing team really isn't really focused on selling it either. And rightly so. This year's Tiger Wii game shipped with the Wii Motion Plus, a controller extension that has generated some serious hype... and as a result the Wii game will outsell x360/ps3 exponentially. And that is smart business.

I'm convinced that the lack of praise from critics in our game is not because our game is lacking quality. It's because they don't care and they're looking the other way. And they should, the Wii guys did a great job and the Motion Plus kicks *ss.

The Tiger 10 demo launched on the xbox marketplace on Thursday, May 21. From a game-play perspective, aside from playing a couple of holes, there's not much to it. However, it does contain a bunch of screens about the game's features, all of which I designed, and a glimpse at the game's UI art direction... which, of course, can be accredited to me. Somebody captured a video of the demo which steps the through the front-end of the demo... from press start to all of the new feature promo screens:

My colleague and friend Mike DeVault finally got the go ahead from our marketing team to announce the Live Tournaments feature for Tiger 10 (see blog here). I love this time of year as I can finally can share and discuss what I've been doing for the last 12 months. Below are a couple screenshots of the Live Tournaments UI... a glimpse at the UI design and art direction I provided as lead interface designer for the game. There are many, many, more to come...

I think I need to waste another post uttering my amazement that Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 is actually complete and will hit stores in just over a month. Week by week we're slowly disclosing the new features via Mike DeVault's blog at Inside EA Sports and at tigerwoods10.com... and with only half of the game's features announced so far, we're already getting overwhelmingly positive reaction from the community. I've actually seen blog posts speculating that we've had a 2nd development team working on '10 for two years now... explaining how we've been able to achieve so much on a shortened, ten-month cycle. Yeah.... NO. I assure you this is not the case. We just happen to have a lot of great ideas and a team of insanely focused and brilliant people. Myself included :)

Isn't the stigma that we just update the rosters and rip out a game every year, incrementing the number on the box? It's actually pretty rare that an EA Sports game gets this kind of cred.

I was digging around on my mac today looking at some of old portfolio stuff and I realized something: I used to be pretty decent at flash animation.

I'd spend late nights mulling over the work of 2advanced, juxt interactive and all those old-school studios wondering "how the hell did they do that?"... and would stress myself out trying to bring my work up to their standards (usually failing).

I used to cut/loop audio, storyboard, design, and animate scripts. Though I was relatively good at it, animation was the type of work I dreaded as it was time-consuming, and insanely difficult. But because our clients were eating it up... it became a huge part of my job as a Senior Interactive Designer at Emsix.

I used a mixture of timeline/embedded movieclip techniques, and Actionscript, borrowed from books and online sources. Actionscript animation was really what inspired me to dig deeper into development and object oriented programming.

Here are a couple of samples from my emsix days... probably from 2003ish:
- History of Firsts
- CSC Rebanding

Over the past 6 years since college, I've grown accustomed to over-achievement and under-recognition. In virtually every workplace and project I've worked on, I've consistently contributed on a level far above my pay grade. Though I've never received any formal recognition, I've developed a strong portfolio and a reputation along the way, which did eventually lead me to a position at EA.

Every year at the Hard Rock Universal in Orlando during the annual holiday party, EA Tiburon has an extravagant award show called "The Sharky Awards" to honor outstanding performers around the studio. It's an over-the-top award show with all of the ambiance you'd expect from the Oscars or the Emmys.

I was recently informed that I was 1 of 5 people nominated for "The Rookie" award by my coworkers for my contributions to the Tiger 09 UI and marketing efforts. I'm truly thankful and honored for this nomination and am frankly shocked that people seem to be taking notice. Its not my style nor temperament to wear my accomplishments on my sleeve.

Win or lose it's just a great honor. So thanks to everybody at Tiburon for a great rookie year. As the Lead UI designer for Tiger 10, I'll try to make my sophomore year even more successful.

As interface designers for video games, its accepted that we're not going to get much cred from the critics. If the UI isn't mentioned in a review it's probably a good thing. And it usually means that gamers aren't getting confused and/or lost in the menus trying to access the game. We're usually lucky to get a "the game looks nice" or the "presentation has improved" from the reviewers. And thats okay.

This year on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, I actually conceived of, designed, prototyped, and implemented (with some engineering help) an element to the game that has influenced gameplay in a very positive way. The "real-time swing feedback meter" is a simple addition to the in-game HUD that shows the player what their thumb is doing on the analog stick during their golf swing.

And it's showing up in all the reviews, read what 1up is saying about it, it's the first thing they mention

"Well, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 brings more tinkering...but this time, the planets appear to have aligned just right. The issues with swing sensitivity are answered with a swing feedback meter, which clearly illustrates any deficiencies in your swing. As you pull back on the stick, you see a little glowing trail in the lower left that shows exactly how steady your thumb is (most likely nowhere near as steady as you think). The instant feedback does wonders for those wishing to learn proper technique."

It's exciting to contribute something that may have direct influence the Metacritic score, 1up gave the game an "A". But my little addition is only the tip of the iceberg. The game is tremendously better than last year and is loaded with new features... and is fun as hell to play. I'm just proud to have been part of the development and am looking forward to another year on the EA Sports team.

Mark your calendars, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 will arrive in stores on August 26. As we wrap up our development cycle and the reviews (like this one) begin to come in... the excitement is beginning to mount and the grueling 12 month development cycle begins to feel rewarded. My contributions to the interface design of this game for both xBox 360 and PS3 versions is certainly the epitome my portfolio and my career thus far and I'm looking forward to having an even more influential role in the development of Tiger Woods 10.

I just designed the brand identity for change me clothing, a company my wife and I started with a friend... trying to bring back the short lived 90's hypercolor fad. I built the ecommerce site using shopify... and created my own skin.

Anyone who really know me, knows that since early in my college years, I've devoted my life to my career... hoping that somehow, someone would recognize my potential and give me a shot. It has been a long, sleepless, and emotionally compromising journey... not only for me, but certainly for my family. After several years, I finally feel that my perseverance may have finally paid off.

It has been a remarkable year and I've had the opportunity to meet some incredible people in the interactive business. Between visits to Yahoo in both Santa Monica and San Clara, California, visits to breakout interactive agencies like Hyperquake in Cincinnati and IQ Interactive in Atlanta, and even a few beers with some folks from Crispin Porter & Bogusky, I've been subject to an extreme professional makeover.

And after all that, I was fortunate enough to actually have a choice. I've chosen to follow a path I could have only dreamt of as a computer-illiterate, high-school football player 10 years ago. As of August 20th, 2007, I am joining Electronic Arts Tiburon in Orlando Florida, working as a UI designer/developer for EA Sports... a dream opportunity not only for me, but for my entire family.

It'll be a departure from the design studio/agency settings I've been apart of thus far in my career, but that is part of the appeal. I'm burnt out from the inherent disorder of companies who are perpetually discovering themselves and lack focus and leadership.