Game designers and artists from Electronic Arts’ Tiburon studio in Orlando, Florida visit a local children’s hospital to spice up the patients’ day.
A group of eight designers and artists from EA Tiburon stopped by the Florida Hospital for Children in Orlando. EA Tiburon concentrates mostly on sports titles such as Madden 09 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. They brought with them tee shirts and 30 copies of some of the games that the studio has worked on including Madden, but also work from other EA studios such as Skate and Boom Blox. The 2nd annual visit was an attempt to reach out to the local community, and the kids who would otherwise be spending their time bored on their beds were grateful for the change of pace.
“I’ve never met anyone who made the games,” said Raymond Ortiz, who has juvenile diabetes and had been in the hospital for two days. When the EA team told him that the first playable version of a game can sometimes have 13,000 bugs, Ortiz was visibly surprised. “Dang, just for one game?” he asked.
Ortiz and his friend, Adniel, did find it a little difficult to play with the hospital’s Wii remotes with IV ports in their arms.
Associate art director Tony Stanley explained why they came to visit. “We’re here in Orlando and we were looking for ways to reach out to the community,” he said. The designers spent the day playing with patients but Stanley and fellow artist Paul Kashuk delighted the younger patients by drawing caricatures and teaching art techniques.
Stanley may say that they were just being charitable, but I sense an ulterior motive. The first name of one of the patients at the hospital was Genesis. Coincidence? I think not.
We may looking at the first console/human hybrid here. Cue the dramatic music. The robot assimilation program has begun…
Source: Orlando Sentinel
Published: Feb 16, 2010 08:10 pm