![]() ![]() Speaking to an industry magazine in 2013, Neil Thewarapperuma, then EA Sports’ marketing manager, put it bluntly: “EA didn’t give a shit about Fifa.” ( Fifa 2016’s development budget, by contrast, is estimated to have been in the region of $350m.) Even so, Tian and his colleagues feared the game might be cancelled at any moment. They had less than five months.įifa International Soccer, as the game would eventually be titled, was a modest bet, costing around $30,000 a month to develop. For the game to be on shelves by Christmas, it would need to be finished by October. The release date for EA Soccer, his current project, had recently been brought forward, after an executive walked past an office and heard staff, who were playing an early version of the game, whooping with excitement. As concern yielded to relief, Tian’s thoughts returned to the work he had left behind in Canada. The previous week, he had received a phone call to say that his father had suffered a stroke and Tian’s bosses had booked him an emergency flight to China.Īfter a week, the doctors had given their prognosis: Tian’s father would be paralysed down his left side, but would recover. But Tian, who had graduated from Beijing University a decade earlier and now worked in Vancouver for the video game company Electronic Arts, had not come to sightsee. It was May 1993 and China’s capital was humid, its parks ablaze with tulips, crab apples and red azaleas. Beside him, his sister held an envelope containing a thousand yuan, close to her entire year’s wages. J an Tian stood in nervous silence in the departure hall of Beijing Capital International Airport. ![]()
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