A long-term partnership with the Global Events Team at Electronic Arts gave us the unique opportunity to flex and evolve as the world changed.

We began with EA Play in 2016: A live event that took over the Hollywood Palladium and built unique and immersive experiences across a city block to bring players together with new games and the people who make them. We partnered with the Global Events Team year over year to design and produce the annual event, from touchpoint to touchpoint, including visual identity, franchise branded experiences, in-person stage shows, and every design detail from pop up fan fest to broadcast packages.

2020 brought some unique challenges. Quarantine required us to bring our physical, fan-first event to our fans in their homes. By early March, we had already designed an entirely new experience for the Palladium, but it became clear that we were not going to have in-person event. Working closely with our partners at Electronic Arts, we were able to help build the tools for what would be one of the first shows live streaming during a pandemic.

Without the scale of a physical event and its towering built environments, or the hum and buzz of the fans, we knew we’d need to create a flexible system that was both bold and dynamic. The opportunity of a digital experience meant we could expand on some iconic elements from Electronic Arts’ deep history in the gaming world with expressive new dimension.

We needed to ensure that this was unquestionably an Electronic Arts show, not just people talking into cameras. We built assets to flex between the campaign leading up to and carrying through the show. Because EA Play Live became a real-time streaming event for a home audience, the system needed to include a rich and varied broadcast package to unify the experience.