Towards the end of last year, EA made a small, seemingly insignificant, change to its executive team.
It made the firm’s group general managers -- the execs in charge of groups of EA’s various studios – report directly to CEO Andrew Wilson. And it was a move made for one purpose: to bring the company’s leader a step closer to those who are actually making the games.
“The goal is to give a stronger voice to studio leadership,” explains Samantha Ryan, who is the group GM for BioWare, Full Circle, Maxis, Motive and a new studio in Seattle. “The knowledge that folks like myself have from being in the thick of it with studios over 20 years is hard earned. Ideally that knowledge helps EA leadership to stay in closer touch with the needs of their studios.”