Westwood Studios
CompanyUnited States
Documents about Westwood Studios
The Game Business35 min
EA's Laura Miele on Command & Conquer mistakes, resurrecting Skate and Dead Space, and Battlefield 6
Electronic Arts is currently prioritizing a fan-centric development strategy that focuses on reviving legacy intellectual properties and fostering deep social engagement.
- EA is prioritizing a fan-centric strategy that revives dormant intellectual properties like Skate, Dead Space, and EA College Football to meet demand from Gen Z and millennial demographics.
- Development for Battlefield 6 utilized 92 million hours of gameplay and 30 distinct builds through 'Battlefield Labs' to ensure iterative, community-driven refinement before launch.
- EA is shifting toward a platform-based model for major titles, integrating single-player, multiplayer, and free-to-play modes to accommodate diverse player motivations.
The Game BusinessJun 2026
Gaming Founders Podcast48 min
The Storied History of Gaming Veteran Louis Castle, Co-Founder of Westwood
The evolution of the real-time strategy genre and the professional trajectory of Louis Castle illustrate the transition of the gaming industry from a hobbyist pursuit to a sophisticated corporate enterprise.
- Westwood Studios scaled its operations by using contract porting work to self-fund original intellectual property, a pragmatic model that allowed for creative autonomy.
- The studio achieved peak growth between 1992 and 1998, reaching a workforce of 250 employees through the success of genre-defining titles like Command & Conquer and Blade Runner.
- Westwood maintained creative control during four major acquisitions by strictly dividing leadership responsibilities between design and operations.
Gaming Founders PodcastMar 2023
Game Developers Conference57 min
Classic Game Postmortem: Command & Conquer
The development of Command & Conquer at Westwood Studios during the mid-1990s represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of the real-time strategy genre.
- Command & Conquer was a pioneer in transitioning game audio from MIDI-based sound chip playback to streaming audio, allowing for the integration of synthesizers and live guitar.
- To overcome severe rendering bottlenecks for in-game cinematics, the team implemented a 'VQ slave mode' policy that utilized idle employee workstations overnight, effectively doubling their render farm capacity from 50 to 100 machines.
- The game's multiplayer functionality was designed to support local area networks via IPX, as well as modem and null-modem connections, though internet play was ultimately deferred to the sequel, Red Alert, due to technical constraints.
Game Developers ConferenceApr 2019