Why the Spore team didn't move to EA's campus
Team members discuss working in an abandoned spaceship, a greenhouse, and a Russian space museum — and being across the bay from Electronic Arts.
While reporting our oral history of Spore, we heard a lot about behind the scenes life at Maxis, from the abandoned spaceship and greenhouse where the game was briefly developed to a visit by an interstellar traveller. And one point that people frequently brought up was the importance of the Spore team's distance from parent company Electronic Arts.
Spore began life in the early 2000s inside Maxis' headquarters in Walnut Creek, California alongside the team developing The Sims Online. Then in 2004, EA more closely integrated Maxis, moving most of the team, which was still working on Sims projects, to its headquarters in Redwood Shores, about a 90-minute drive on the other side of the San Francisco bay. But the Spore team stayed behind, and later moved elsewhere — a decision made both out of convenience and a desire for independence.
As designer Chaim Gingold put it, "The geography is important."