Ian Walker (Kotaku): Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards

[bell_hooks]

I don't think award for best direction means best production. Just best artistic choices in presenting gameplay/story.

But apart from acknowledging indvidual actor's performance or great accesibility, games produced under crunch should not get "best game" awards. Best direction is one such award. It also should not get best action game and game of the year because of that.

 

[Ayirek]

Last of Us 2 deserved awards. The whole Naughty Dog team deserved awards. The direction did not.

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This is exactly it. Thank you.

 

[Joe White]

I wonder how you measure that from the finished product or if it's just "the best game also has the best direction"?

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Measure? These awards are not based on measurements or facts, but collection of mostly white dudes opinions and feelings on things. It would be better just to drop those more toxic awards and promote something like "healthiest development cycle" -awards instead.

 

[Amnixia]

Maybe TGA can have a new award called "The Gulag Award" specifically to call out the worst crunch studios in the industry?

 

[bell_hooks]

Measure? These awards are not based on measurements or facts, but collection of mostly white dudes opinions and feelings on things.

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It's funny because it would perfectly describe Oscars, and TGA wants to be the Oscars of gaming

 

[Sander VF]

Maybe TGA can have a new award called "The Gulag Award" specifically to call out the worst crunch studios in the industry?

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Perhaps I'm just stupid, but AFAIK TGA is basically a glorified gaming industry marketing event.

Stuff like that would alienate the "donors"

 

[Amnixia]

Perhaps I'm just stupid, but AFAIK TGA is basically a glorified gaming industry marketing event.

Stuff like that would alienate the "donors"

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True, every awards show is pretty much just a circlejerk.

 

[Deleted member 8852]

No need to quote that terribly bad take post anymore, the poster ignored the thread and ran away to complain about people here being salty about their post in the PS OT thread.

 

[strudelkuchen]

Among Us team crunched like hell in the game after it exploded in success. Stardew Valley guy too, if you read the Jason's book.

If we are making these rules, better to just end the TGAs.

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It's also their baby. They are the only stakeholders. Completely different scenarios.
They are also most likely set for life now.

If you crunch as a programmer at a major AAA studio you will maybe get a great bonus at the end, but that's about it.

 

[Muffin]

The amount of bad faith arguments in this thread because of the notion of giving a game one less award is really unbelievable.

1. No, not every studio crunches, that should be clear.
2. Mentioning other studios crunching is just whataboutism.
3. It doesn't matter what the "Best Game direction" award is for according to the TGAs. Since there is no Best Studio award anymore I imagine they wanted to seperate the production side of things, but there is no seperating it, especially not in this case. Game direction and scope has a huge impact on workload, and Druckmann has been VP and now Co-President for gods sake. There's barely any more influence he could have.

 

[arsene_P5]

Maybe TGA can have a new award called "The Gulag Award" specifically to call out the worst crunch studios in the industry?

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TGA heavily relies on good partnership with all publishers (first and third party) and they won't do negative awards like this. I kinda would like them to call out crunch, but I can understand the business reasons for TGA not to do it. I just think they should cancel this specific award and replace it with something else.

 

[Deleted member 51539]

Games made under crunch deserve awards because not giving them an award just means all their hard work went towards nothing. End of. Besides, in the AAA games industry I don't see where many don't crunch towards an end of a project so who are we to say they don't deserve an award? TLOU2 deserved every single award last night and critics knew it too because they voted for it.

Thank you. TLOU2 got voted for best direction for their creative vision and innovation, not for being a project manager or producer who deals with day to day staff. Some people are trying, and failing, to conveniently mix the two together. Was there crunch involved with this game? Most likely but I imagine even the directors were crunching towards the end of the project.

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Workers getting PTSD is worth it because some suits will get a pointy statue in the mail

Imagine being this in love with a corporation.

 

[strudelkuchen]

Games made under crunch deserve awards because not giving them an award just means all their hard work went towards nothing. End of. Besides, in the AAA games industry I don't see where many don't crunch towards an end of a project so who are we to say they don't deserve an award? TLOU2 deserved every single award last night and critics knew it too because they voted for it.
[...]
Thank you. TLOU2 got voted for best direction for their creative vision and innovation, not for being a project manager or producer who deals with day to day staff. Some people are trying, and failing, to conveniently mix the two together. Was there crunch involved with this game? Most likely but I imagine even the directors were crunching towards the end of the project.

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> Druckmann was promoted to vice president of Naughty Dog in March 2018.
> Druckmann was promoted to co-president of Naughty Dog, serving alongside Wells, on December 4, 2020.

Dude is basically the top guy.

 

[bud]

I agree completely with this article.

Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards

Last night, The Last of Us Part II walked away from The Game Awards with seven trophies, including those for Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure. Arguments can be made as to...

kotaku.com

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this is sillly.

it's an award for best direction in a game, not for best-managed project.

 

[Exit Music]

I don't want to be that guy because there is room for both discussions, but it's wild to me that we spend 10x more energy talking about developer crunch than the forced labor of people making many of the devices that run the games. Yes, crunch is horrible, but it's not the worst of the sins being committed in this industry.

 

[deathkiller]

As always lot of people seems to think that crunch results in better games when any measure of productivity will show you that overworking people quickly ends up in less work being done. Mistakes grow in number and are more time consuming to fix when your staff is tired.

Also in my experience if the overtime is paid you will see managers quickly switching to not authorising it.

 

[Deleted member 13370]

edit

 

[BLASTEROID]

Best Game Direction | Nominees | The Game Awards

Check out the nominees for Best Game Direction at TheGameAwards.com. Who will you vote for? #TheGameAwards @TheGameAwards

thegameawards.com

It's nominated for innoative and creative purposes. In other words, awarded for having an cool and innovative vision for the game and keeping production of the game aimed at that vision.

Cracking the whip to execute on that vision faster is not tied to the game direction and is probably more just project management.

Even though the one certainly impacts the other, the vision ideally can't be sacrificed for the timeline. I can still see the argument for this award not acknowledging games with great direction if they made undesirable choices down stream of that.

 

[Pariah]

I don't want to be that guy because there is room for both discussions, but it's wild to me that we spend 10x more energy talking about developer crunch than the forced labor of people making many of the devices that run the games. Yes, crunch is horrible, but it's not the worst of the sins being committed in this industry.

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It's simple: this controversy aims at one particular studio; forced labor puts the whole industry (and most probably everybody's favourite company) to shame.

It's easy to pile on a group you (I mean, a particular somebody) already disliked for a variety of reasons; it's much harder to look at yourself in the mirror and admit how much of a hypocrite you are. If people around here were serious about this topic, they'd simply would quit 99% of gaming once and for all; and I guarantee that last 1% would still overwork under stressful conditions at some point or another (I don't believe at all that Supergiant or any similar-sized studios have never had crazy periods of crunch before reaching a key deadline).

As always, talking is easy. When it comes to facts, the same people will go back to their Cyberpunks and GTAs without an ounce of remorse.

 

[Muffin]

I don't think best game direction should be an award at all because, how would anyone other than someone who had worked on all the nominated games actually know how well the project was directed? Not to mention how bizarre the comparison gets - how do you qualify the way TLoU2 depicts violence visually in relation to the story and gameplay against how DIY recipes are distributed in Animal Crossing? Both are game direction decisions but they are worlds apart.

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I very much agree with this. I still think one can well argue that Druckmann has a high executive position besides being director and thus more influence on the culture there than a usual director, but that wont apply to every studio and we often dont get insight into how it was actually directed (besides journalist articles like for Naughty Dog) or if the direction had a big impact on the crunch culture there.

 

[Unaha-Closp]

The Morally and Ethically Good Game Awards 2021 probably won't pull in the sponsors so I am thinking nothing will change as to who wins awards. Who is going to mandate a change at Naughty Dog? The higher-ups at Sony got thanked by Neil so they are complicit if he is complicit. When Naughty Dog crunch then it's Sony who is crunching or is approving of it as a managerial and production technique. If they win awards for it - who is going to change? Either the Game Awards' criteria for entry or Sony. I fucking loved TLoU2 and think it deserved awards from a purely game player perspective and I hope for saner management on their next one but hope isn't exactly going to do it.

 

[Dr PeterVenkman]

It was sort of cryptic, but neil specifically mentioned the burden the production put on the devs families, and something about it changing the way they do things, or something to that effect. Was that an indication that naughty dog will move away from crunch going forward?

 

[Transistor]

It was sort of cryptic, but neil specifically mentioned the burden the production put on the devs families, and something about it changing the way they do things, or something to that effect. Was that an indication that naughty dog will move away from crunch going forward?

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Ideally? Yes. A lot of that can be solved by not announcing games too soon and not setting concrete release dates until the product is ready to go.

However, a lot of that comes from the above publishers, so they're the ones that need to change, too.

 

[MrBadger]

if the game in question wasn't last of us 2 and was cyberpunk or red dead, there probably wouldn't be as many people defending naughty dog and druckman over crunch

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Without a doubt. People are only bending over backwards to dismiss crunch or change the subject because it's Naughty Dog, the ResetERA golden child.

I can't believe that like half the posts in this thread find it necessary to point out the distinction between direction and production, as if that's important. This conversation is utterly exhausting and it should not be controversial that Naughty Dog shouldn't have been given as much praise as they were. And yet it is.

 

[Rodderick]

Without a doubt. People are only bending over backwards to dismiss crunch or change the subject because it's Naughty Dog, the ResetERA golden child.

I can't believe that like half the posts in this thread find it necessary to point out the distinction between direction and production, as if that's important. This conversation is utterly exhausting and it should not be controversial that Naughty Dog shouldn't have been given as much praise as they were. And yet it is.

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It's important because we're not discussing whether crunch is bad, we're discussing whether crunch should impact a studio receiving a Best Direction award for a game. If your position is "studios that crunch shouldn't get awards in general" I can get behind that, but if it isn't and you believe they shouldn't get awards that involve project management and production, then the fact "Best Direction" isn't related to those aspects is relevant.

 

[mutantmagnet]

I totally agree. If anything, TGA could have taken that opportunity to roast the nominees by saying that while they are great games, the industry needs to change. And then not give the award to any of them. Or if there was a studio that didn't crunch and was nominated give it to them.

but it feels really hopeless (and I'm not a dev) that our industry is seemingly hand waving this, especially in the case of CP2077

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That would be Supergiant for sure.

Arguably this also could apply to Nintendo. They don't crunch as much as other studios but it depends on the game they are working on.

Doesn't every game have crunch in some form or another?

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Since the whole EA spouse thing? No. That letter was one of the major reasons a bunch of devs said fuck it and attempted to go independent and avoid crunching while following their passions. Some of them have been successful.

 

[mutantmagnet]

A good game's a good game, crunch shouldn't have anything to do with being more or less rewarding of an award, so I completely disagree.

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That's what best game is for.

Best direction specifically looks at the merits of your leadership and your ability to manage the scope of a project definitely does matter when assessing overall director performance.

 

[Rodelero]

Without a doubt. People are only bending over backwards to dismiss crunch or change the subject because it's Naughty Dog, the ResetERA golden child.

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i really don't think many people in this thread are dismissing crunch or trying to change the subject. If anything it is your 'side' that is trying to play fast and loose with the details because you care far more about attacking Naughty Dog than making a coherent point.

I can't believe that like half the posts in this thread find it necessary to point out the distinction between direction and production, as if that's important. This conversation is utterly exhausting and it should not be controversial that Naughty Dog shouldn't have been given as much praise as they were. And yet it is.

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You're asking people to ignore that your arguments are poor on the basis that your basic position is correct.

Ian Walker, you and I agree on the basics. You have to make a really bad argument to lose my support. "Let's misconstrue the Best Game Direction award so we can arbitrarily not give it to a particular developer" is a really bad argument.

 

[MrBadger]

It's important because we're not discussing whether crunch is bad, we're discussing whether crunch should impact a studio receiving a Best Direction award for a game. If your position is "studios that crunch shouldn't get awards in general" I can get behind that, but if it isn't and you believe they shouldn't get awards that involve project management and production, then the fact "Best Direction" isn't related to those aspects is relevant.

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I feel like a broken record in this thread. If you cannot accomplish your creative vision without your staff suffering, you are not the best director.

besides. The very simple reality is that all of the higher-ups at Naughty Dog are complicit in allowing the crunch to happen. Because the crunch happened. That's why the distinctions are arbitrary.

 

[Pariah]

I can't believe that like half the posts in this thread find it necessary to point out the distinction between direction and production, as if that's important.

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It's not important; it's the very point of this topic and the ongoing discussion.

PS: You're sporting an avatar linked to a company that willfully relies on forced labor (now) and crunch culture (in multiple periods of its existence, as with the infamous Mario Time under Miyamoto). How can you reconcile criticizing others' positions when you wrote comments such as:

Besides, what Nintendo did this year is not worse than what Ubisoft, Naughty Dog and CDPR among others did.

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And then:

Disqualify them then. Promote the games that were made ethically. "Lots of studios do it" is an awful defence.

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Either it's all bad or nothing at all. It's this sort of double standard what leaves a blind spot for scapegoats and the continuous acceptance of abuse, depending on who's behind it. Only because they delayed one game in order to "protect" their workers' health, it doesn't erase years of bad practice and all that's wrong in other fields of their business.

 

[MrBadger]

It's not important; it's the very point of this topic and the ongoing discussion.

PS: You're sporting an avatar linked to a company that willfully relies on forced labor (now) and crunch culture (in multiple periods of its existence, as with the infamous Mario Time under Miyamoto). How can you reconcile criticizing others' positions when you wrote comments such as:



And then:



Either it's all bad or nothing at all. It's this sort of double standard what leaves a blind spot for scapegoats and the continuous acceptance of abuse, depending on who's behind it. Only because they delayed one game in order to "protect" their workers' health, it doesn't erase years of bad practice and all that's wrong in other fields of their business.

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You misunderstood me as defending Nintendo in that post. I think their practices are dreadful too. I was making the argument there that cancelling a melee tournament isn't worse than worker abuse, and listed examples of companies this year that had worse public scandals that were ignored by the public once they released a shiny new product. Also I've had this avatar for like 3 years or something lol

 

[Sec0nd]

Best direction specifically looks at the merits of your leadership and your ability to manage the scope of a project definitely does matter when assessing overall director performance.

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Is it though?

I have no real idea of how things work in the gaming industry compared to the movie business. But if I have look at the movie industry 'best direction' looks at how all the creative decisions come together to create a compelling piece. It's a creative award, not a project management award.

A good director obviously tries to steer production in a way that is efficient and productive (Steven Spielberg is an absolute legend at this) as it's easier to achieve your vision for the project. But it also takes the brilliance of a director to let his vision shine through regardless of a troubled production.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I don't think anybody really gets what Best Direction even means for games anyway, lol.

As for not awarding games made under crunch, I mean...the horse has kinda left the barn on that shit, hasn't it? Everybody had one big honking target with Cyberpunk they could make an example of. All the media outlets shaking their heads at worker's conditions went right back to giving it a 90+ MC, hosting their advertisements, doing the previews, editorials, interviews, Most Anticipated Games articles, etc for months, hell years. They did their part to make sure it sold millions even before everybody saw how trash the base PS4/Xbone performances was. More than likely it'll be up for their website's GOTY(as will TLOU 2, well this is true as well) to honor gaming excellence.

Like why is all that ok, but a Best Direction award(which no two people seem to have a working definition of anyway) at a meaningless marketing promotion show, THAT'S where you draw the line?

 

[Murdamonk]

Crunch sucks, but i kind of disagree.

The GOTY award shouldn't be judge on that.

IMHO, it is picked for the final product.

However, the best producer/director shouldn't be awarded to a team that is crunching their employees.

 

[Pariah]

You misunderstood me as defending Nintendo in that post. I think their practices are dreadful too. I was making the argument there that cancelling a melee tournament isn't worse than worker abuse, and listed examples of companies this year that had worse public scandals that were ignored by the public once they released a shiny new product. Also I've had this avatar for like 3 years or something lol

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I don't think it matters how long you've had it; for someone who believes that their practices are dreadful, there's some degree of incoherence in using one of their creations as the picture that represents you before everybody else.

Out of those quotes, only the first is connected to that topic; the second one is from this very thread and when put next to the other, it falls in contradiction: "compared to others, they weren't so bad, yet at the same time, saying others also did badly or worse is an awful excuse".

PS: Nintendo (among many others) relying on companies who employ forced labor is 2020 news (and 2019, 2018, 2017...). How that wasn't the loudest scandal of the year is all it takes to know how little most (especially in the media) care about those working conditions they can't stop talking about.

 

[Alex3190]

I agree completely but now it makes me wonder.
Is best direction award related to best managed game?

 

[Litigator]

On one hand I agree that crunch culture shouldn't be rewarded.

But on the other hand if I was an employee who had to suffer through crunch I'd damn well want to be able to say on my resume that I "worked on game of the year" for all of my troubles.

I work in an industry with it's own "crunch culture". And the crunch times are miserable but would be even worse if the employees subjected to that aren't adequately rewarded and compensated for they had to suffer through.

 

[Snefer]

Nope, from AAA to indie, there are several studios avoiding crunch.

Respawn and Supergiant for example.

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Nope, respawn crunched like crazy for Fallen Order :)

 

[mutantmagnet]

Is it though?

I have no real idea of how things work in the gaming industry compared to the movie business. But if I have look at the movie industry 'best direction' looks at how all the creative decisions come together to create a compelling piece. It's a creative award, not a project management award.

A good director obviously tries to steer production in a way that is efficient and productive (Steven Spielberg is an absolute legend at this) as it's easier to achieve your vision for the project. But it also takes the brilliance of a director to let his vision shine through regardless of a troubled production.

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I'm not arguing for it being solely a project management award. I'm saying project management clearly matters.


Budget and talent are the canvas that restricts directors in how they "paint" their next piece of work.

 

[MoogleWizard]

It's also their baby. They are the only stakeholders. Completely different scenarios.
They are also most likely set for life now.

If you crunch as a programmer at a major AAA studio you will maybe get a great bonus at the end, but that's about it.

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Yeah, the whatabouthism and deflection in this thread is ridiculous. Stardew Valley was made by one person whose long hours were self-imposed. Comparing that to corporate slaves is just asinine and disingenuous.

I don't think it matters how long you've had it; for someone who believes that their practices are dreadful, there's some degree of incoherence in using one of their creations as the picture that represents you before everybody else.

Out of those quotes, only the first is connected to that topic; the second one is from this very thread and when put next to the other, it falls in contradiction: "compared to others, they weren't so bad, yet at the same time, saying others also did badly or worse is an awful excuse".

PS: Nintendo (among many others) relying on companies who employ forced labor is 2020 news (and 2019, 2018, 2017...). How that wasn't the loudest scandal of the year is all it takes to know how little most (especially in the media) care about those working conditions they can't stop talking about.

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More whataboutism and deflection. It's possible to find both the practices of hardware manufacturing companies in China and the corporate practices of certain game developers in the West and Japan abhorrent. This is about the corporate practice of crunch, which is its own separate problem and not related to the manufacturing of hardware elsewhere. These devs decide how they treat their own employees in their own studios. This is what they do and manage directly every day, it's their job, and it can be criticized. They don't decide or have the power to decide or influence who works in a hardware production plant on the other side of the planet. They do have the power to decide how they run their studios.

It's also kind if low to use a poster's Nintendo avatar to accuse them of being disingenuous about their participation in this topic when your entire post history is in Sony and Naughty Dog threads. Should we use that to discredit your posts as well? Or maybe not because you don't have a Sony avatar, so you're likely 100% objective.

 

[Sec0nd]

I'm not arguing for it being solely a project management award. I'm saying project management clearly matters.


Budget and talent are the canvas that restricts directors in how they "paint" their next piece of work.

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For me personally the invisible side shouldn't matter in the best direction part though. As the production side of things is more or less the situation the director had to work in, often with very little impact on the matter.

BUT, in the gaming industry most of the individuals are pretty anonymous and these awards often get rewarded to 'the game' or to the studio as a whole. And at that point you could argue that the production side of things could impact the discussion.

Which brings me to another point, Game Awards shouldn't just give the awards to games, but to the actual people behind them. We love that people such as Kojima are able to take the reins and create something wholly unique. In my opinion the gaming industry should need more of that. So award should be Best Direction - Awarded to Neil Druckmann for The Last of Us II, or Best Art Direction - Awarded to *Art Director* for *Game*, etc. Just like the movie industry.

 

[Karlinel]

But isn't crunch a managerial aka producer thing, rather than directorial? Seems a bit confusing.

 

[sph3re]

Perhaps I'm just stupid, but AFAIK TGA is basically a glorified gaming industry marketing event.

Stuff like that would alienate the "donors"

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No, that's pretty spot on.

 

[Nostremitus]

He's absolutely correct. Developers can make amazing games despite bad direction and bad directors shouldn't benefit from that.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

On one hand I agree that crunch culture shouldn't be rewarded.

But on the other hand if I was an employee who had to suffer through crunch I'd damn well want to be able to say on my resume that I "worked on game of the year" for all of my troubles.

I work in an industry with it's own "crunch culture". And the crunch times are miserable but would be even worse if the employees subjected to that aren't adequately rewarded and compensated for they had to suffer through.

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If publishers knew games they spend millions on were not going to get the time of day during award season or even lessened coverage overall due to their working conditions, they would manage crunch better. The situation as it is exists because there is 0 pushback for it.

Someone can miss out on game of the year on their resume if as a result they all get to sleep reasonable hours and spend time with their families and friends. We should all smile with that on our souls.

 

[AnimaRize]

people are still defending naughty dog and the crunch i see

 

[mutantmagnet]

For me personally the invisible side shouldn't matter in the best direction part though. As the production side of things is more or less the situation the director had to work in, often with very little impact on the matter.

BUT, in the gaming industry most of the individuals are pretty anonymous and these awards often get rewarded to 'the game' or to the studio as a whole. And at that point you could argue that the production side of things could impact the discussion.

Which brings me to another point, Game Awards shouldn't just give the awards to games, but to the actual people behind them. We love that people such as Kojima are able to take the reins and create something wholly unique. In my opinion the gaming industry should need more of that. So award should be Best Direction - Awarded to Neil Druckmann for The Last of Us II, or Best Art Direction - Awarded to *Art Director* for *Game*, etc. Just like the movie industry.

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It's a little curious to say the first paragraph when you made previous comparisons to the film industry. I think most best directors and pictures have the directors also attached as producers. Correct me if I'm wrong. For the games industry you are absolutely right they rarely have input on the staffing or budget, even in indie studios the game director isn't usually the producer once the team size exceeds double digits.

I agree that awards should be given to individuals but that would require Geoff's version of an awards show to actually care about such things instead of being a vehicle to push game related advertisements.

I wonder if GDC and BAFTA handle this specific aspect better.

 

[Pariah]

It's also kind if low to use a poster's Nintendo avatar to accuse them of being disingenuous about their participation in this topic when your entire post history is in Sony and Naughty Dog threads. Should we use that to discredit your posts as well? Or maybe not because you don't have a Sony avatar, so you're likely 100% objective.

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I'm only responsible for my own words. It'll be others who will have to explain their own, written here for anyone else to see (unless they find a charitable soul ready to justify them). In my opinion, its own contradictions speak for themselves; discrediting me, entertaining as we might find it, won't go anywhere to change them.

As for the avatar (you surely noticed), it was only a footnote in our exchange; regardless of it, spare me the rhetoric. An avatar is a free election made by any of us among millions of possible choices; would you choose a picture of Donald Trump if you thought him dreadful? Would you choose a racist depiction if you found it dreadful? Answering these questions is the real low-hanging fruit.

In regard to all else, I invite you to judge me and wreck me apart, as hardly as you can, whenever you see me stumbling in a similar inconsistency. Neither his or my sympathies were put into question; hopefully, we're still free to like or dislike whatever we want. The difference is I don't deal in bullshit; I assume the worst from every company, I take the good with the bad and the ugly, and I have no problem in telling you that all these corporations are filled with bastards, only surpassed by their gullible audiences. Whenever you find me saying otherwise, here I am (my history is public, unlike yours).

PS: I'm still trying to figure out where that first paragraph came from.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

It's important because we're not discussing whether crunch is bad, we're discussing whether crunch should impact a studio receiving a Best Direction award for a game. If your position is "studios that crunch shouldn't get awards in general" I can get behind that, but if it isn't and you believe they shouldn't get awards that involve project management and production, then the fact "Best Direction" isn't related to those aspects is relevant.

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Direction and production do not exist in separate bubbles though. A directors vision for a game HUGELY influences the production pipeline.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

I agree completely but now it makes me wonder.
Is best direction award related to best managed game?

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J.P. Kellams (formerly Platinum, now EA) tweeted about this.