Last week, the Visualization students had the
great opportunity to visit EA Phenomic, a development studio of the
world's leading interactive entertainment software company, Electronic
Arts (EA). The company focuses on the creation of outstanding computer
and video games for an international audience. They specialize in
strategy, empire building and role playing games for PC, console-and
online media.
Well known games developed by EA are FIFA, Need for Speed,
Battlefield and Command&Conquer. Right now EA Phenomic is working on
games such as Lord of Ultima, Battle Forge and Settlers 3. After a very
warm welcome with drinks and snacks, the CEO spoke about the
development of the company and answered all kind of questions that came
up. Afterwards the students got the chance to see the heart of the
studio and looked over the shoulders of some game designers. To top our
visit off, we were lucky to listen to a presentation by the art director
and were allowed to take home some of the games as give-aways.After this amazing company visit, our excursion was not finished yet. We took the bus to Mainz and visited the Gutenberg museum which is one of the oldest museums of printing in the world. We were greeted by our fantastic, knowledgeable tour-guide Prof. Dr. Markus Wriedt who showed us around and presented a survey of almost 500 years of the printed book. Our tour ended with a demonstration of an old printing press and two of us were actually allowed to participate in the printing process.
Following in Gutenberg's footsteps, the group attended a workshop in the print shop next door. Over there the students were able to vent their creativity and created their own little prints in memory of an amazing excursion to Mainz.
Written by Inga Bruckmann, Program Assistant VIZ Spring 2013
