An inside view of multiplayer magic

Interview with producer Brooke Olson

Real-time Multiplayer Games pose unique design and deployment hurdles. What are some of the challenges you and your team faced as you developed Tetris, Bejeweled and EA Pool?

There are multiple challenges when creating a fun, real-time multiplayer game for mobile. We have to contend with multiple carrier networks and hundreds of different handsets - all of which have their own unique quirks. In addition, the carriers often have stringent requirements, requiring us to build multiple versions of the game for the same handset across multiple carriers. Part of our analysis includes examining a carriers billing methodology - we want to make sure it won't cost the user an exorbitant amount to play multiplayer. As we get down to the game design, we focus on simple, fun and fast. We want to make it as easy as possible for a user to get into a multiplayer game and go head to head against players of all skill levels.

The user experience in multiplayer is distinct in that it opens up the solo gamer to the world of gamers who might want to compete. How do you incorporate these 'social' aspects into the titles?

Over the years, our real-time multiplayer games have incorporated a variety of community related features - global player rankings, buddy lists and the ability to invite friends to play with you. In addition, we've focused on presence - making sure the player is truly aware of the other player.

One of the things we've introduced into our real-time titles this year is chat, allowing players at the end of a match to send canned or custom-written messages to the other player.

Do you think that mmorg's will ever be played on phones, and are these multiplayer titles the first step in this evolution?

For the US and Europe, this is definitely the first step towards playing massively multiplayer online RPGs. In Korea, we're just starting to see these games take off and for good reason - it's a highly social game and the phone is a social device. As carrier networks continue to improve, RPGs are the next step in the mobile multiplayer evolution.

What's the most fun aspect of mobile multiplayer?

I love being able to pick up a phone and jump into an interactive game with another person almost immediately.

What, against whom, and where was your sweetest multiplayer victory?

Once - just once - I beat Ray D, the number one player in the Bejeweled community. This user has played over 40,000 real-time multiplayer games and is the best player I've ever seen. I was so surprised to win that I accepted the offer to rematch and was subsequently put back into my place!

Learn More:

Compete against your friends - play mobile multiplayer games

Tetris

Bejeweled

EA Pool

View Spring 2007 Newsletter

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