Frank Gibeau, label president of EA Games
Like Eric Murphy, the manager-turned-movie producer on HBO's Hollywood satire "Entourage," Frank Gibeau doesn't like being called a "suit." We couldn't hug it out, unfortunately, as the Q&A was conducted over the phone, but we'll certainly attempt to do so when we see Gibeau at next week's E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, the success Gibeau has had as executive vice president and general manager of the Americas for Electronic Arts would make any suit creatively-minded executive proud. With the previously announced reorganization of EA under the direction of CEO John Riccitiello, Gibeau recently assumed the position of president of EA Games, alongside three other divisions: EA Sports, EA Sims and EA Casual. In Part I of our two-part Q&A with Gibeau, we discuss his mandate for EA Games, how he plans to preserve the creativity of his studios under the new structure, and why Activision should get ready for war if it thinks that its Call of Duty 4 can take the modern warfare genre away from EA's Battlefield series without a fight.
EA Games is a pretty boring name for your group. Kathy Vrabeck's division is called EA Casual. Did you ever considered naming yours EA Hardcore?
We've been playing around with the name Core, but one of the things that I wanted to look at inside the unit as we stood it up was what was the real personality and feel. What I've discovered in the brief time that I've been looking at the role is that the value is really in these units, these local teams and these local leaders. When you go to Criterion and you sit down with Alex Ward on Burnout and Black, or you go to DICE with Patrick Soderlund on Battlefield, or even Hanno Lemke up in Canada on Need For Speed, each one of these units is its own vibrant little city-state.
I've been at the company for a long time. A lot of the times when we've bought companies or done EAP [EA Partners] deals or even stood up teams inside the organization, it's when you have a tight link between the creative teams' local culture and a vision for projects that you get the best games. So when I'm thinking about this brand and this unit, I'm really interested in these local teams, these local franchises, these little cultures; trying to foster them and bring them to a greater level, rather than coming up with the next big brand name for the division.
For me, it's more a notion of vibrant city-states with light central government. That's how I'm thinking managing this, rather than what's more traditionally thought of how EA does things. I'm going to try something a little different with this label and try to be more tied to the customer and the product and focusing on the small. That's not to say these aren't huge products--because Need For Speed is 10 million units plus--but I think of this as the brand brought to you by EA as opposed to the other way around. Make sense?
Yes, it does. So you're looking at EA Games more like the United States, with strong states' rights, as opposed to former Soviet Union with its central planning?
I am actually. Now obviously you have to have a highway system. [Laughs.] You have to have the FAA to make sure the planes don't collide. But I believe in the local personalities, those local leaders. I mean, when you look at the equity that people put into the games, they're really doing it because of the people around them and the games they're creating, that they have a vision contribution on. That's the asset, that's where the value is created, so I want to create an environment and a culture that allows for that to happen. That's where the innovation comes from, not necessarily centrally planned economies with strict federal governments.
So what's your mandate?
