EA approached d3t to help bring the first instalment of EA SPORTS FC™ powered by the Frostbite engine, to players on Nintendo Switch, following our previous experience and track record in bringing other titles to the platform.
The end product not only utilised a new game engine, but also pushed the capabilities of the platform. With players able to jump into the most true-to-football experience, whilst seamlessly having the option to play all their favourite game modes (Career Mode, Volta, Ultimate Team) that they come to expect.
At d3t, our team of dedicated and experienced Programmers, Artists, Producers, and Quality Assurers worked together alongside our partners at EA Vancouver and EA Romania to bring EA SPORTS FC 24 to players on the Nintendo Switch via the Frostbite game engine, without key quality of playability being sacrificed.
EA SPORTS FC 24 is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
For more information about EA SPORTS FC 24, check out the official page here, or view the full trailer below.
Tell us a bit of information about your experience/career background?
I am a qualified electrical engineer who has dabbled in many fields throughout the years. However, it was just before the COVID pandemic outbreak which saw me transition into working in production/project management! I have found that mixing my hobby and love for video games with my production skillset was a match made in heaven. Especially as it enables me bring that passion to work every day.
Why d3t?
d3t stood out to me from the awards alone, along with glowing recommendations from staff I know. Having worked in several fields across numerous industries, I wanted a place where I can mould a career rather than just have a ‘job’ and d3t seems like the absolute perfect place to do that. A career and a fantastic work environment? Sign me up!
What do you love about games?
I love the escapism, the ability to be transported away from whatever is bothering you and just switch off your brain for some fun, or alternatively turn your brain on and learn! I found my love for history from playing the Total War, Age of Empires and Anno games that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?
I am currently having a blast on Delta Force and Starship Troopers Extermination. I am very much tapping into the old school feel of shooters, with a spattering of Rainbow Six Siege mixed.
As for my favourite game I have to say World of Warcraft, it’s been a mainstay I return to every expansion just to see what’s going on! The War Within has been brilliant fun so far!
Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?
In my spare time I mostly enjoy spending time with my family, embarrassing my teenage daughter, throwing axes and playing Airsoft. (It’s like paintballing but with BB guns).
Interesting fact – Giraffes are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning than humans.
Tell us a bit of information about your experience/career background?
I’ve been a programmer in the games industry for 3 years now, where I’ve worked primarily in porting and co-development. Some major titles that I’ve worked on include the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X port of Crusader Kings III and the VR port of Metal: Hellsinger for Meta Quest 2/3, PSVR2 and SteamVR compatible headsets. Prior to entering the games industry, I spent roughly 2 years working as a Software Engineer, in addition to also earning a Computer Games Programming BSc from the University of Derby.
Why d3t?
I discovered d3t through a mutual friend who works for the studio and after doing some research, d3t really stood out to me!
I love co-development as it gives you the opportunity to work on a huge variety of games alongside some of the most prominent companies within the industry. This provides you with the chance to leave your mark on games that’ll be enjoyed by thousands worldwide and exposure to all manner of technologies that enable you to grow your skillset.
It’s also my aim to work for a company that really values its employees and d3t seems to fit that bill. Winning the GamesIndustry.biz Best Places to Work Award six times in a row and getting Gold in the Mind Workplace Wellbeing Index tells me all I need to know about d3t, as a company that looks after and respects its employees.
What do you love about games?
I’ve been obsessed with games since I first played Super Mario World on the SNES as a toddler. I love how games are such a creative and diverse medium, there’s truly a game for every person and every mood that person may be in. They allow you to experience anything you can imagine, and the best part is you don’t just sit back and passively watch the game unfold, you get to participate in it yourself! I also love how games can bring people together. Lifelong friendships (and rivalries) can be forged online with people halfway across the world, or locally with someone sat right next to you.
What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?
I’m currently bouncing between Tomb Raider 2 Remastered, Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, Yakuza 0 and Stardew Valley.
As for my favourite game, it’s hard to settle on one but I think I’d have to say Fallout: New Vegas (Also Old School RuneScape, that game has me in a vice grip).
Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?
My biggest fun fact is probably that I’m a triplet!
As for hobbies, I’ve got an ever-changing revolving door of interests. Currently I’m really interested in split keyboards. I’ve even built a couple of them! I also play guitar, read sci-fi novels, tinker with Linux and have recently gotten into experimenting with self-hosting stuff (e.g. local networked storage, local media server, etc).
We are delighted to announce that d3t alongside our sister studio Coconut Lizard, have been recognised as a GamesIndustry.biz Best Place to Work for 2023!
The award highlights the best games studios to work for in the UK, and 2023 marks the fifth consecutive year in a row that d3t has won the award and the sixth time in our history.
However, what makes this award more special for us is that it is voted for primarily by our team, with 75% of a studios score coming from an anonymous employee survey and the final 25% via an in-depth company questionnaire.
Speaking on the announcement, our Head of Studio, Richard Badger, said: “I am delighted that both d3t and Coconut Lizard have been announced as two of the best games studios in the UK to work for. This is not only the first time that Coconut Lizard has been recognised, but it is also the sixth time that d3t has received the award – 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and now 2023.
“Since both studios were founded, we have continued to level up, not only on the scale and complexity of the games that we work on, but also in the size of our team, which now stands at close to 200 strong. However, with this growth, we have been completely committed to keep our culture at the forefront of what we do.
“This commitment has seen us as studios continue to improve what we do, whether it’s investing more into our studio’s spaces, increasing our team’s perks and benefits, or adapting our policies and practices to ensure that the needs of our teams changing lives are met.
“We do this because we care about everyone associated with d3t and Coconut Lizard. And put simply without our team’s incredible talent and passion for all things games, we would not be where we are today. So, a massive thank you goes to every single of them as they have made the studios the great places to work that they are.”
This is the second award that d3t has received this year, after also being announced as the winner of the Employer of the Year category at the Halton Business Awards, along with receiving a Best Creative Provider award nomination at this year’s Develop:Star Awards. The studio also received nominations within this year’s Gi.Biz special award categories – The Education award, Health and Wellbeing award, and the UK Best Boss award, for our outstanding Head of Art, Louise Andrew.
Tell us a bit of information about your experience/career background?
I have enjoyed video games for as long as I can remember and have always known that I wanted to work with them. So, once it was time to pick a career path there was no doubt in my mind on where to go.
I started learning about video game development back in 2014 at the gymnasium school I attended. The school offered many game development related courses, and through that I was able to find my love for animation.
After I graduated from that school, I still wanted to learn more, so I applied for higher education schools like university and higher vocational education. There I was able to deep dive in game animation, growing more and faster than I ever could before.
All in all, this journey accumulated in about 10 years of learning the ins and outs of game animation and working on projects, and I really feel that I have found what I want to work with for the rest of my life.
Why d3t?
d3t contacted me knowing I was looking for an internship position. I was given the opportunity to speak with some of the animators on their team and it quickly became clear that d3t is as serious about game development as I am.
What do you love about games?
Games are a very unique form of art in my opinion, as they offer a level of interactivity that no other art form provides. Combine that with the creative freedom that art naturally brings, and you have a recipe for limitless amazing experiences.
What I’m trying to say is that video games, much like other forms of art, aren’t bound by the shackles of reality and are free to go beyond what reality would allow. And thanks to the fact that you are more of an active player instead of a passive spectator, you can take part in the grand worlds and fantasies in a way that no other form of art can offer.
What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?
I am a huge fan of fighting games and love everything Arc System Works make, like Guilty Gear, Blazblue, and Granblue Fantasy Vs. And if I don’t feel like playing a fighting game, I usually find myself bonusing back to Nuclear Throne.
However, I could honestly go on and on about the video games that I like, but to encapsulate why I like these games and games as a whole, it all comes down to its characters. The characters are to me the most important part of a video game, hence why I love fighting games so much as they tend to offer quite a large variety of characters. This also helps me get into new genres of games. If I can choose between a colourful roster of characters and pick a favourite, hone my skills with that character and learn how they work, that’s usually a pretty effective way of getting me interested in a new game.
Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?
When it comes to hobbies, risking sounding very one-note, but video games are the biggest passion in my spare time. But I’ve already spoken enough about that.
I also enjoy watching TV shows following an overarching story. Plus going for walks paired with music is also a very good way to slow down sometimes and get away from the screen.
Tell us a bit of information about your experience/career background?
I’ve been in the industry since 2007, where I started out helping developers with PlayStation tools and libraries. I then moved into gameplay programming, where I’ve worked on everything from AR and VR to indie and AAA third-person action games. I’ve also spent some time working on simulations to help plan evacuation strategies for ships and stadiums.
Most of my experience is with C++, but I’ve also programmed games with C, C# and Lua.
Why d3t?
I was drawn to d3t because of the variety of projects that the studio works on, but what really stood out to me is how well the company treats and respects its people. Everyone I’ve met here has been super friendly and down-to-earth. I’m really excited to be part of the team and dive into all the interesting, exciting projects that we’re working on.
What do you love about games?
There’s nothing quite like games and the impact they have on our psychology when we play them. I also love the combination of mixed media, technical details, and creativity that goes into their development.
What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?
Recently, I’ve been revisiting some retro games including Advance Wars and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrows. I’ve also been playing more modern games like Hades.
It’s always tough to pick just one favourite, but Super Metroid is definitely up there.
Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?
I love music and I play bass guitar in a band. I also like to dabble with electronics and retro game development. Recently, I’ve been making a Mega Drive game that runs on original hardware, creating all the art and music for it, as well programming it in C.
Tell us a bit of information about your experience/career background?
I am a technical art student enrolled at The Game Assembly in Malmö Sweden, where I have been a part in creating 4 small games. However, I am just starting out my technical art career.
Before attending The Game Assembly my occupation was working in logistics at Volvo Cars where my task was to supply the assembly line with materials both as a team member and as acting team leader, where I supported and managed the team.
Although I have dabbled with game development as a hobby before it was while working at Volvo Cars that I spent some of my free time learning Python, Unity and Blender which laid the foundation for my application to The Game Assembly.
Why d3t?
d3t is exciting for me because of the quality, scope and variety of the projects the studio is working on and as such I expect to find a lot of interesting and varied tasks ahead. Variation in work is something I value a lot. d3t also seems to me to be a very friendly and competent studio, where I will get the opportunity to grow as a Technical Artist. The “Best Places to Work” awards are also something that caught my eye and the brief contact I have had so far makes me very excited about what is to come.
I did not expect to do my internship at a British studio, something that would not have been possible if it had not been for the possibility of remote work and I am very grateful for the opportunity.
What do you love about games?
I love games that I can share with friends and family that evoke a sense of mystery, wonder and adventure through story and gameplay, where you cannot wait to see what hides behind the next corner and that evokes a great urge of exploration.
Games have this ability to fully immerse you in a way that I find other mediums have a hard time doing.
I also like to craft and build things, min-maxing, and taking part in competitive games, although I pay close attention to stay away from toxic situations which is a part of competitive games that I do not love.
Aspects that continually grab my attention include exploring new worlds, being a part of a community, and taking part in games with engaging characters and meaningful stories.
What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?
I recently finished Alwa’s Legacy, and I am currently revisiting Diablo 4 as well as a little bit of No Man’s Sky and StarCraft 2.
If me and my partner find the time, we play a little bit of It Takes Two or The Quarry together. I think the earliest favourite game I remember is either Mega Man 2 or Diablo 1. There was something about the pacing and atmosphere to those games that drew me in, as well as sharing the experiences with my friends. My current favourite game however is probably Ori and the Blind Forest.
Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?
I grew up with dogs and now I have two cats together with my partner. I still consider myself a dog person and we will probably get a dog in the future, but our two cats are real goofballs. They are named Yuffie and Ahri, they both really enjoy lettuce that we use to teach them tricks.
I enjoy taking long bicycle rides and I also have a motorcycle driving licence for whenever I want to go even further and faster. However, I do not own a motorcycle just yet, but hopefully will in a year or two.
I own an 88key keyboard and a guitar that I play around with every now and then, but I would hardly say that I can play either of them.
I have also been to South Africa on safari where the most memorable moment was when we drove through a big herd of elephants, smelling them well before we saw them. And two fun smaller adventures closer to home was when me and my partner drove to the southernmost and then the westernmost point in Sweden.
Tell us a bit of information about your experience/career background?
I’ve worked in games for around 15 years across a wide variety of genres and different platforms, primarily in the indie and mobile areas, but also on some cool bespoke hardware things like exercise bikes and touchscreen tables. I started out running a small contract studio at university, before moving up to Scotland to work at more established companies. I’ve been lucky enough to work on some more ‘well known’ titles (Neon White, Angry Birds Pop) and just as lucky to work on less famous ones that I got to pour my heart and soul into (Pine Hearts, Cloud Jumper).
I’m really looking forward to working on the more ‘big game’ side of things to experience a side of the industry that’s always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and I couldn’t be more excited to start.
Why d3t?
Primarily I wanted to move towards the AAA world and learn from the best, but it was equally important to do it in a place that would also value people highly and treat them well, since this industry isn’t always the best on that front. Luckily, I came across d3t at the right time and with the excellent history of people loving to work here and the variety of projects and technology available to work on and learn, it feels like the perfect fit!
What do you love about games?
As remarkably cheesy as it sounds, games to me are about inventing and experiencing little moments of magic, whether it’s playing with systems that lead to creativity you didn’t imagine, or narrative moments that resonate only because it’s a game and you’ve made decisions and actions to get to that point. It’s just a cool and still heavily unexplored medium of art that never has to be any one thing and that’s exciting to work on, where even the work itself ends up feeling like solving a puzzle a lot of the time.
What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?
I’m currently playing a lot of Slay the Spire, Hitman, occasionally some of the Paradox games and a bit of Street Fighter 3 every now and then. My favourite games are Ultima Online and Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike.
Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?
I like to make silly music occasionally, I spent a number of years playing Street Fighter 3 competitively to the point where I went to Japan to compete a few times and a fun fact is that I can technically say I toured with Dire Straits in the 90s, as my dad’s band was supporting them on a tour and 8 year old me was brought along for a few stops, although the only thing I remember is having fun sliding up and down hotel hallway carpets.
What was the first game that you worked on? Sega Mega Drive Classics (Nintendo Switch)
How did your career begin within the games industry?
I was recruited as a Junior Programmer directly out of university, where from 2014-2018 I was studying for a BSc in Computer Games Programming at Staffordshire University. Whilst in my final year of studies, a recruiter reached out to me informing me that d3t were on the lookout for Junior Programmers. After speaking about the role, he then put me forward, and I later received a coding test.
At the same time whilst this was happening, the leader of my course at the time, organised an engagement with industry veterans, where studios would come in to interview final year students for actual jobs. The aim of this was to give the industry early access to new juniors that were looking for their first roles.
d3t were in attendance of this event, and as a result I had a last-minute interview with our Studio Technical Director and a Technical Director – last minute because they had a docket full of planned interviews and I was already taking part in the application process.
This unorthodox interview, together with the code-test earned me the “normal” interview with the same Technical Director and a Lead Programmer at our old studio site. During the interview I gave a rather different response on the code test, which led to an extended interview to discuss my answers. However, I ultimately passed the application process as I formally received my offer on the way home.
What is it like working at d3t?
As cliché as it may sound, working at d3t amongst this team of like-minded and talented individuals, feels a lot like I’m collaborating with friends on a project.
We have a very relaxed and familiar vibe as we’re working, and every single person is there for one another in whatever way is required and with no judgement. This is not limited to work-related topics either, as only a few months ago, two of my colleagues and friends were more than happy to assist me with my moving home, which I very much appreciated!
This is further reinforced by our clubs and societies (and supporting endless number of mattermost channels we’ve created to talk about the more niche topics that our team are interested), and our top-tier summer and winter parties.
We also have a flexi-time policy which is very conducive to an easier work-life balance. Especially when we have overseas clients or external teams. The implementation of this makes life easier for me, as I get to work around different times of the day. For instance, if I’m required for client/external meetings at an earlier or later time of the day, I’m able to attend these without having to work over my eight hours. Equally it also means that I can spend a portion of the day doing whatever I need to do personally at times suitable to me whilst maintaining my workload.
As a Programmer, what do you typical day-to-day activities consist of?
As a programmer, I would naturally (as one might expect) spend most of my time writing code, investigating bugs and crashes with a view to resolving them, conducting code reviews and more. If I’m also building new features, this might require an element of technical authoring for feature proposals or implementation documentation.
As of late though, all the while trying to manage my work, I’ve started taking on some small leadership responsibilities, so I often keep in touch with my “strike team” and make sure that their days are unblocked and moving forward consistently. I also lead or encourage stakeholder reviews for the work the team is doing, report back issues to my team, and lead and participate in short-to-mid term sprint planning meetings.
What are the current programming challenges we face and how are we overcoming them?
I think one of the most challenging problems for a programmer is trying to work on new systems that have very limited documentation or in-house knowledge.
Two of the projects I’ve worked on had very little documentation (if any) and because of the nature of the projects, we were dealing with proprietary codebases, meaning nobody at d3t at the time would have had intimate knowledge of any of the systems on day one.
This meant that we could only really rely on our code navigation capabilities, which is a product of the navigation tools we would use, and our tactics learned on previous projects/experiences to learn as quickly as possible how all the systems and interact with each other. Which can be a time-consuming process and, in some cases, a project-risk if something needs to be done on a tight deadline.
Of course, as time goes on and the initial team has the knowledge building up (and hopefully documented as they’ve developed their understandings), onboarding future team members becomes easier, but these are often project-specific still. Fortunately (for work-for-hire studios at least), as clients might begin to rely more on different off-the-shelf engines, these are usually documented to different degrees of quality and if we acquire future clients using the same off-the-shelf engines, we build up a project-agnostic bank of knowledge which teams can share.
What are the things that excite you most about your role?
At this stage of my career now, depending on project status of course, I start picking up or being asked to manage more significant tasks or features. This can be kicking off designs for new tech and implementing to completion or a certain stage for somebody more junior to pick up.
This gives me a great buzz because it gives me the chance to flex some creative architectural and/or coding muscles to try to develop cool (and maybe clever) tech that could be easily extensible or integrateable with other systems. It is also a great feeling to know you’ve built the system either to a prototyped or production-ready state and you get great feedback from the stakeholders either for improvements because it’s not quite there yet or requirements have changed or praise because it is exactly what stakeholders are looking for.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced whilst in the industry and how have you overcome it?
For me, one of the most difficult problems I’ve had to solve, was related to memory stomping while I was a Junior Programmer on Mafia II: The Definitive Edition. I’d heard of “memory stomping” as a problem before but had never written code that manifested in memory stomping before. Debugging this was completely alien because it was a case of the program crashing a couple frames after the problem started, and as such debugging was a nightmare. Thankfully, one of the Principal Programmers and Technical Directors was present to help guide me through the process of debugging such issues. With their guidance, which included my learning of the “Data Breakpoint” I was able to deduce that some array traversal arithmetic was going wrong, where the calculation of the array size was performed using one fixed size primitive type and a variable-sized type, depending on target platform architecture.
What has been your most memorable moment working within the industry/or at d3t?
My most memorable moment I think is likely one of the other most difficult problems I’ve had to solve before – we affectionately named this problem “Dumbass* Henry” (*Censored for public consumption) – myself and two other senior engineers spent more time than we would like to admit trying to identify why Henry wouldn’t run down the stairs from the apartment outside The Distillery. We had it pinned on the AI code we were using being potentially ported incorrectly but it turns out that there was a placement of a collider that was not correctly placed, and Henry had managed to run into it but not out of it. Ultimately, we didn’t even need the collider, so we removed it, and job was a good’un! The thing that made it most memorable was the sheer joy of having solved it, knowing how much time was put into its investigation.
Where do you see programming heading in the next 2-3 years?
Great question – although, I’m not sure I see much changing for the programmer in the next couple years, at least where games programming is concerned. It seems to me that we’ve established a solid reliance on Unreal Engine, with technologies like Nanite, Lumen as well as gameplay systems. It’s quite easy to just jump on these so people don’t have to write entirely new rendering systems, AI systems, net-code, etc, from scratch – even some AAA studios are migrating from in-house proprietary engines.
Things like IDEs and supporting tooling seem unlikely to change significantly. I’ve been using Visual Studio since I started at d3t and have had no reason to change and while these tools do receive updates, none have made significant changes to engineering workflows.
A point of contention at the moment, of course – Artificial Intelligence! Now, I’m not 100% clued up on the use of tools such as ChatGPT and the like for day-to-day operations for programmers. From what I’ve heard though, there is too much of a reliance on public domain information to train them and naturally, working on private IPs for clients presents risk for us and/or for clients and so is pretty much a non-starter. We have performed some R&D in this space for an internal project and anecdotally seems to have yielded some positive results. Rendering though has made a significant stride recently in the form of Machine Learning and Frame Generation with respect to DLSS 3 and FSR 3, utilising deep learning techniques to further upscaling capabilities and in some cases enhancing performance by four-times with DLSS 3.
What makes you proud to work at d3t?
The thing that makes me most proud working at d3t is the studio’s commitment to working with the education sector to improve the prospects of new graduates attempting to break into the industry. I remember the struggles of my cohort trying to compete against the rest of the graduate market and land our first roles and it was a struggle.
d3t and Coconut Lizard are represented at many different events working with universities directly, Recruiter Firms and other initiatives all throughout the year, where we provide talks, workshops and in some cases portfolio reviews to give grads the best chance they can to break in. We also have a team of Ambassadors which look to get involved in all these opportunities.
As one of these Ambassadors, I am frequently able to visit my alma mater to provide insight to students by way of Mock Interview Workshops, judging at Staffs Uni GradEx, contributing to their Industry Advisory Panel and this year I have started providing mentorship services to a group of students building small Cross Platform Engines as part of a module.
What advice would you give to anyone looking to get into the games industry as a programmer?
I’m sure this is a cliché response to this topic now but having a great portfolio is key, either as a graduate or associate level applicant. It doesn’t have to show everything you’ve ever written, and it doesn’t have to be a fully-fledged game, but I would suggest:
Selecting some of your best works.
Providing some video evidence of some systems/features.
Creating a synopsis on the proudest one or two features, or difficult problems you faced and how you solved them (adding considerations and justifications.
Adding links to specific functions/code-files that exhibit the solution for outlined features or problems. (Not a link to the root of the repository).
The idea behind these points is that you are putting your best foot forward as swiftly as possible understanding that most of the people screening CVs and Portfolios cannot really afford to spend significant time trying to understand the candidate initially so doing them the favour here is likely to do you a favour going forward.
We are hiring
Stay tuned for more spotlight features coming soon. In the meantime, if you’re feeling inspired and want to join our team, check out our vacancies page!
“Since both studios were founded, we have continued to level up, not only on the scale and complexity of the games that we work on, but also in the size of our team, which now stands at close to 200 strong. However, with this growth, we have been completely committed to keep our culture at the forefront of what we do.
