IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Industry Insights: Life After EA

Posted July 2, 2009 by Rick Giolito

Charting a New Course

On a Friday in June of 2006, we finished work on the vertical slice of Daybreakers, our next-gen IP. On Monday I turned the development team in an entirely new direction: Virtual Worlds.  

The ability to be flexible, adapt and let go of our original plan had saved us. We went to work for MTV on production of a 3D social gaming space based on Pimp my Ride. This change was not met with enthusiasm by everyone in our employ. Everyone had signed on to do next-gen and we were taking them into the unknown world of real-time social interaction and casual gaming. It wasn’t long before the expected happened. Some people walked. Their personal desire to work in the area of gaming that they desired overshadowed their belief in Michael and I as leaders. Disappointing, yes, but completely understandable. 

Out of this crisis, came clarity. We were in a new space. There was excitement with this new area of online entertainment. It felt eerily similar to the pre-launch days of the original PlayStation where anything seemed possible. We quickly became experts in this new, growing field. We aligned ourselves with one of the smartest people in the business, Michael Wilson, CEO of There.com. We turned a corner. 

In hindsight, it was the right decision. Traditional gaming revenues have remained relatively flat, while the casual online space has exploded. We were now well positioned for growth as demand for our services was high, just the opposite of where we had been a year earlier. Perhaps there was a bit of luck involved, but I’d prefer to chalk it up to the tenacity and flexibility that Michael and I exhibited. We simply refused to fail.

Since that time, we have further expanded our capabilities to include the production of in-browser MMOs utilizing Flash. We have created a proprietary engine called Firefly, which takes full advantage of the capabilities of the Flash 10 player. Our goal is to infuse our online casual MMOs with all of the ingenuity and innovation that our backgrounds as traditional next-gen game developers strive for. So things did not exactly turn out as planned. It turned out even better than expected. When I started Trilogy Studios, I had no idea that I’d feel like it was 1999 all over again.

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Rick Giolito is President and co-founder of Trilogy Studios, an independent developer dedicated to creating new intellectual properties for next-generation gaming systems. He is responsible for production and design of all studio initiatives. Formerly, he held the roll of Vice President, Executive Producer of Electronic Arts Los Angeles. He managed an internal development team of over 200 people, as well as outside development studios dedicated to creating titles on multiple game platforms. He supervised the production and design of the award winning global hit franchise, Medal of Honor. Mr. Giolito was also responsible for launching the EA Sports Knockout Kings franchise (AIAS Console Sports Game of the Year award winner) for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 consoles, as well as Knockout Kings 2001 for PlayStation2. Before joining EA in 1997, Giolito co-founded an independent game development studio in Southern California and was responsible for the creation of titles for Hasbro, Fox, Disney and Electronic Arts. Giolito holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin and had an extensive career in film and television prior to focusing solely on interactive entertainment.